


This flawless, vital hand, this perfect head, this body of flame and steel

by Blanquette



Series: The Yew Tree [3]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, Childhood Friends, Dreams, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Mutual Pining, Rituals, Shamanism, Shapeshifting, Spirits, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:34:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 41,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25505269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blanquette/pseuds/Blanquette
Summary: The two kids who keep coming to Minghao's shop to annoy the hell out of everyone turn out to be more than he ever bargained for. Maybe it's destiny. Maybe he's just cursed.
Relationships: Chwe Hansol | Vernon/Lee Chan | Dino, Hong Jisoo | Joshua/Yoon Jeonghan, Jeon Wonwoo/Xu Ming Hao | The8
Series: The Yew Tree [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754734
Comments: 39
Kudos: 101





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well pals it's been a while! If you're wondering yes I'm probably gonna cram every single member of seventeen in this AU. 
> 
> This one might feel a bit stand-alone at first but it actually ties in with the general plot so it might be better to read the first two stories before this one. Not an obligation though!! 
> 
> Also I'm really sorry but when I copy/past my stuff to AO3 box spaces sometimes appear between the letters. I tried to fix them all but I might have missed some.
> 
> Thank you for reading!

**1.**

When Jeonghan closes the shop that night, bending to lock the steel shutter, he stops halfway through and looks up towards the other side of the quiet street, movement at the edge of his vision sending his heart hammering. It takes him a while to find the source, wide eyes searching the encroaching darkness and it’s only when a light rain starts to fall that he spots it, huddled under the halo of a lamplight, grey fur against grey asphalt. It’s a cat, ears flat against its head and round eyes reflecting the light. It seems to be staring straight at him and Jeonghan ducks under the shutter, crouching outside in front of the shop, gazing back. The cat isn’t moving despite the rain wetting its fur, despite the cold wind and the distant noise of traffic.

“Are you hungry?” Jeonghan asks a little loudly and the cat tilts its head, considering him. Jeonghan has the distinct impression that the animal understood him, and he’s about to ask something else when it rises on its legs, shaking the rain out of his fur, and takes off down the street. Jeonghan shrugs, waddling back under the shutter to lock it and thinks better of it at the last second. In the kitchen he finds leftovers and a little bowl where he puts water. He leaves his offerings in front of the shop, close to the wall to shelter them from the rain. Things aren’t always what they seem, he knows, and the cat’s eyes had been too strangely human for such a face.

  
  


**2.**

“Don’t you have someplace else to be?” the guy behind the counter asks Dino with an obviously exasperated sigh. Jeonghan, Vernon thinks, his name is Jeonghan, if the last time they were here is anything to go by. He shuffles in place behind Dino, who has one elbow on the counter, leaning in what he probably hopes is a nonchalant pose.

“No,” he’s saying, “I’ll be here until you make reparations.”

Jeonghan opens his mouth, closes it, and sends Vernon a long-suffering look. Vernon just shrugs, helpless. It’s not like there is anything he can tell Dino that will make him stop.

“Look,” Jeonghan says, “I don’t have time to play with kids.”

Dino stares around the empty shop, slowly, gazing back with an eyebrow raised, a pointed look on his face, the one that makes everyone want to slap him. Jeonghan isn’t immune either, if his face is anything to go by, and Vernon inches closer, tugging on Dino’s sleeve and talking close to his ear.

“Hey, Dino, maybe we should go,” he says softly but Dino waves him off, planting both elbows on the counter.

“I’m not moving.”

“Look, Dino or whatever,” Jeonghan starts, “listen to your pretty friend. You should go. I already told you last time there is nothing I can do for you.”

“You think he’s pretty?” Dino asks, missing the point entirely, turning to look at Vernon who shuffles back. Dino’s stare is heavy on his skin, too heavy, just like every time he looks at him without seeing.

“I have eyes,” Jeonghan is saying, bringing Dino’s attention back to himself and Vernon releases the breath caught in his lungs, “and also fingers, that I will use to call the police if you don’t fuck off.”

Dino snorts, leaning further on his elbows and Vernon wonders once again where did he learn to be this annoying.

“And tell them what?”

“That there’s a kid loitering around my shop, refusing to leave for some made up reason.”

“There’s two kids,” Dino says, pointing to Vernon over his shoulder.

“I don’t mind this one. He’s shutting up. He can stay.”

“If he’s staying I’m staying,” Dino says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’m not staying, though,” Vernon ventures then, both men breaking off their staring contest to look at him. Vernon shrinks back under the attention, grabbing at his messenger bag. “I mean, I gotta go home. Dad’s cooking.”

“Oh,” Dino says, eyes lighting up. “What’s he making?”

“Dumplings, I think,” Vernon replies, knowing full well what is going to come next.

“Can I come?” Dino asks right on cue and Vernon nods, wishing it didn’t make him this pleased, the smile on Dino’s face, the light in his eyes and the relief he knows he could find there, too, if he looked; and Vernon never really asked how it was like for him at home, if his dad cooked dumplings too, if his mum had a too loud laugh and soft hands but the answer was there anyway, in the way Dino always slowed down on the way home, in the way he spent too much time in Vernon’s cramped room, falling asleep on the carpeted floor.

“What kind of dumplings are we talking about?” Jeonghan is asking, interrupting Vernon’s thoughts and he stares blankly at him, Dino speaking over him when he finally opens his mouth to answer.

“You’re not invited, what does it matter,” he says almost aggressively, and Jeonghan sighs, leaning against his counter.

“Oh you’re breaking my heart, you rude little dude,” he replies with amusement in his voice, a glint in his eyes and Vernon understands then that he doesn’t mind them so much, Jeonghan’s smile fully blooming when Dino points at him with an angry finger.

“I’ll be back, this isn’t over.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will,” Jeonghan waves them off cheerfully as Vernon drags Dino towards the door before he can say anything else and they have to stay for another round of absurdity.

Jeonghan watches the door close behind them, listens to the jingle of the little bell before he slumps forward, resting his head on his arms, a sigh escaping him. He’s been tired, these past few days, so tired, and the quietness of the house after Minghao left cloaks him in a soft kind of wistfulness he carries within him like a wounded bird; soft heartbeats and softer footsteps, Joshua’s golden skin and a perfect face he’d thought lost forever. He knows it is only the aftermath, that he’ll find himself again, find the fleeting contentment he’d felt, that first time Joshua had come to him, risen from the dead and the lost. But he knows, too, that the fear will always be there. The fear that one day he’ll lose him again, his fingers slipping from his, cold, their warmth forever extinguished. The fear that this time, death won’t release its embrace.

“Jeonghan?” a quiet voice asks then and Jeonghan looks back towards the red curtains separating the shop from the house. Joshua is there, poking his head through and a tremendous waves crashes against Jeonghan’s ribs then, drowning all and he reaches out to him, pulls him through the curtains, catches his lips and his hands and his heart.

“What was that for?” Joshua asks when they part, a little flushed, a little dazed.

“Nothing,” Jeonghan says, but there’s too much in his eyes and Joshua knows, he knows and he pulls him against his chest, cages him in his arms with his beating heart and he speaks against Jeonghan’s skin, soft words and softer feelings and Jeonghan remembers then, remembers black ink on a white page he’d read long ago, _there are_ _words and voices that help to heal this pain, that lift off the worst part of your illness_ and this is it, he thinks, this is one of them, the most adored of all voices, the most beloved words.

Softly Joshua pulls him from himself, staring at his face and the pain in his eyes and softly he kisses him and death is faraway now, chased by a love almost too sharp to bear; Joshua is warm, golden and whole and Jeonghan can rest, sink in soft dreams and softer arms chasing the fear away with bright lights.

“I love you,” he whispers against Joshua’s skin, and the words are echoed a thousand times.

Later, much later, when again Jeonghan pulls down the steel shutter in front of the shop his gaze travels across the street and the same cat is there, sitting motionless under the same light, grey fur and startling eyes. Jeonghan crouches, watching in silence and he is sure now, the cat is staring back at him.

“You didn’t eat the food I gave you,” Jeonghan says and the cat tilts its head again, attentive, too attentive.

“It’s okay,” he continues, and the cat blinks slowly, full moons disappearing behind a cloud. “If you need something, we’re opened every day.”

The cat stands then, blinks one last time at Jeonghan before padding down the street, a grey shadow swallowed by the night and Jeonghan shivers before going back inside, rolling down the shutters and locking the door. There’s noises from the kitchen when he steps behind the heavy curtains, the smell of food, Joshua’s voice rising in songs and a soft smile makes his way to his lips; in this moment there is no fear, in this moment there is only peace.

  
  


**3.**

“What do you know about the silk road?”

“It’s a road for silk. Why are you doing your homework on my counter?”

Vernon glances at Dino as he looks up from his notebook to stare at Jeonghan, who’s peering at them with a bored look on his face. They had learned his name for sure the third time they had come, and he had learned theirs the day after. It had become sort of a habit, to stop at the shop after school, and maybe it had nothing to do with Dino’s failed attempts at getting justice for his failed tarot reading anymore, maybe they just liked it here, the soft glow of the old lamps and the mess on the shelves, the smell of incense and Jeonghan’s amused smiles and fake annoyance.

“It’s a nice counter,” Dino replies, looking back down at the scribbles on his page. Jeonghan sends a look at Vernon who just smiles, a little absent, a little stiff.

“Don’t you guys need a computer? For like, research purposes.”

“That’s a good point,” Dino answers without looking up, adding hair to the bald head he just drew. It would look like Jeonghan, had he any drawing skills.

“Go home, Chan,” Jeonghan says tiredly, arranging a display at the end of the counter. Vernon isn’t sure what the little lumpy pouches on it are supposed to be, and he doesn’t ask.

“I don’t wanna,” Dino answers, and this seems to close the discussion. Vernon looks back down at his own notebook, blank of any writings, and it’s only when he hears another one of Jeonghan’s tired sighs that he looks up, the man staring at them both in turn with his stern face on.

“Why are you like this? Seriously, don’t you have any more exciting places to hang out at?”

“Not really,” Vernon says, and winces when Jeonghan’s sharp gaze falls on him.

“You’re a waste of youth,” he says as if he himself was a thousand years old. It feels like he is, though, sometimes. A faraway look would fall upon him, a wistfulness Vernon had no words to describe, not yet, and he wonders what must have come to pass for him to carry such sadness. He glances at Dino then, at the stupid face he’s making and Jeonghan isn’t the only one to carry an unnamed burden. Sometimes in the dead of night, when Dino thinks Vernon isn’t looking, when he thinks Vernon is asleep next to him, he would look the same, staring at the ceiling of Vernon’s room, at the glowing star stickers he’d put there as a child and never managed to peel off.

Vernon would look at him through his eyelashes then, heart beating against his ribs, loud, too loud for Dino not to hear yet he wouldn’t move, tired eyes riveted to the ceiling and the downturned corners of his mouth would paint a face he never wore during the day, an old face, a pained face, a face Vernon hated but loved all the same because it was still him, a part of him hidden, buried deep, reserved for the solitude and stillness of the nightly hours. And Vernon never asked, Vernon never asked, he already had all the answers.

“The silk road was a road for silk?” Jeonghan is saying, his voice bringing Vernon back in the moment and when he looks Jeonghan has turned Dino’s notebook towards him.

“Let me guess. You’re the best student in your class,” he continues, Dino sending him a death glare.

“You’re the one who said that!”

“Yeah, and as you can see I have a fulfilling career as a rocket scientist.”

There’s a soft sound when Dino’s forehead hits the counter and Jeonghan laughs, patting him on the hair. It happened quick, this familiarity between them, and Vernon stares and something unfurls within him, a soft yearning yet he knows this isn’t him, easy touches and quick banter, this was never him, too quiet and too slow yet Jeonghan is staring at him now, and there’s a smile on his lips and a softness in his gaze Vernon almost believes is only for him.

“Okay, I know who might be able to help you,” he says then, and Dino springs up immediately.

“The angry dude? He’s back?”

“He’s back next week, I told you like three times. What’s with you and Hao anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Dino shrugs, looking back down at his paper, “he just seemed cool.”

Jeonghan snorts, shaking his head.

“Hao’s so not cool,” he says, pushing himself off the counter, “take your things, I’ll ask Joshua to help you with this.”

“Who’s Joshua?” Dino asks as they fall into step behind Jeonghan, following him and Vernon only pauses for a second before crossing the red curtains. It’s the first time they’re allowed behind them, and it feels like a little transgression, a little defiance, treading on a forbidden path and Vernon holds his breath as he stares at the painted walls, at the narrow staircase losing itself in the darkness above. It’s quiet, here, even Dino has fallen silent; it feels like the house is sleeping, waiting for something, someone, and they don’t dare disturb it.

Jeonghan doesn’t seem to have the same concerns, climbing the first three steps towards the upper floor and yelling Joshua’s name. There’s the noise of a door falling shut, footsteps on creaky floorboards, a tumble down the stairs and the man who appears at the landing looks too eerie to be completely real; Vernon can feel Dino straighten in a proper position at his side and it’s in the eyes, he decides, the haunting eyes gazing at them, too old for such a face, too dark for the smile curling the full lips.

“That’s Joshua,” Jeonghan tells them with a soft smile and Vernon understands then, who this man is for him. “That’s Chan and Vernon, I told you about them,” he finishes, turning to Joshua who looks to each of them in turn and the gaze he lands on Vernon is too warm, too knowing, a faint curiosity painted there Vernon isn’t entirely comfortable with.

“They have to write a report on the silk road,” Jeonghan is saying, his voice registering distantly as Vernon stares at Joshua and there’s something about him, something strange yet familiar.

“Okay,” Joshua says, and then, when he seems to understand where Jeonghan is going with this, “oh, okay. You want me to help.”

“Yeah, you must know stuff, right?”

“Well, I mean. I was barely born then.”

Dino snorts, rolling his eyes, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder.

“How old are you, five hundred?”

“You’d be surprised,” Joshua answers with a smile as Jeonghan starts walking down the darkened corridor, leading them to a small kitchen at the far end. Vernon steps in gingerly, sitting next to Dino who already commandeered a chair, free of any embarrassment as he spreads his papers on the wooden table. Vernon stares at the faded blue walls, at the flowers hanging head down from strings, drying, at the dirty mugs in the sink and the nice cupboards from where Joshua gathers tea leaves and clean cups. It feels almost too pleasant, he thinks, sinking into his chair, too easy, too much like home and the only thing missing is loud laughter and lively talks. It’s there too, Vernon realizes then, this sadness, this soft kind of wistfulness he feels in Jeonghan sometimes, it’s there too, hanging like a veil over the little kitchen, over Joshua’s troubling gaze and careful gestures and once again Vernon wonders what has come to pass here, for the ripples to still be felt.

“I need to go back to the shop, have fun,” Jeonghan says before leaving, offering two thumbs up Dino mirrors with a mocking smile. Vernon isn’t sure how long they stay, after that. The tea Joshua offers them smells of lemon and tastes of ginger and honey, strangely comforting, and any uneasiness Vernon felt slowly dissolves in quiet laughter and quickly scribbled words. Joshua talks of times past and it’s too much like listening to someone’s memories, anecdotes of a past life he couldn’t have possibly known. Vernon watches him, watches his dreamy gaze and the glint in his eyes, watches the yearning smile that stretches his lips as he talks and he seems happy, happy and nostalgic, like grandparents sometimes are when someone finally listens.

And so for a long time the only sounds to be heard are Joshua’s soft voice and Dino’s furious scribbles, and when it’s time to part there’s more; Dino’s loud voice, water in the pipes as they rinse the cups, chairs scrapping and bags thumping and footsteps down the corridor, the house slowly waking and Vernon listens and it’s nice, he thinks, like waking from a long slumber. Joshua asks them to come back, sometimes, Jeonghan laughing, telling him they’re already here too much and it feels easy, like nothing ever is. The door closes behind them with a jingle of the bells and Dino starts down the darkened street, turning back when Vernon is too slow to catch up, asking with a smile if maybe he has food at home, if maybe they could play video games, if maybe he could sleep there, Vernon watching him with wide eyes and a too loud heart.

That night when Jeonghan closes the shop, a little later than usual, the cat is right there at the threshold. Jeonghan crouches and when the cat doesn’t bolt he extends a hand. The cat sniffs it once, twice, before bumping its head against his fingers, allowing Jeonghan to pat its crown and Jeonghan retracts his hand once it is done, as if knowing this was all he was allowed.

“I’m Jeonghan,” Jeonghan says, offering his palm yet again and the cat bows as in greetings, touching his cold nose to the tip of Jeonghan’s fingers.

“You are welcome, here,” he continues, “it is safe.”

The cat lifts its head then, staring with its troubling eyes, blinking slowly and Jeonghan stays until complete darkness falls, until the cat pushes its head against his hand once more, until it turns and disappear, a grey shadows amongst countless others.

  
  


**4.**

It’s the next day, when Minghao pauses in front of the shop, hand on the polished handle of the familiar door, and waits. There is something to be felt there, a welcome, an acknowledgment, and he lets himself feel it, wondering what it is he will find inside. He’d left almost in a hurry, so much things left unsaid, so much things left behind; the fear of a certain loss, the sorrow, the relief and the joy and he wonders how Jeonghan will look. Settled, maybe, softened and soothed but his wounds had been so raw Minghao worries about the scars, about the stolen glances and the lingering touches, the ones checking, just checking Joshua is there, still there, heart beating and breath rising.

He takes a deep breath before pushing the door open, the jingle of the bell announcing his entrance. It smells the same, it looks the same, and something settles inside him, something yearning for home and familiar sights. That is, until his raises his gaze to the counter, and the person behind it is absolutely not Jeonghan.

“Welcome!” the kid half yells, a grin splitting his face. “How may I help you?”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Minghao asks in disbelief, recognizing the kid that had come so many weeks ago to complain about Jeonghan’s tarot reading.

“I am manning the counter.”

“Why?”

“It’s Jeonghan’s lunch break and I was kind of there,” the kid shrugs, leaning his elbows on the counter. “No one came anyway.”

Minghao lets his bag fall to the floor, sighing. The kid just keeps smiling up at him as if he’s genuinely happy to see him. Maybe he is, Minghao thinks, detailing the lines of his face; for some unfathomable reason he won’t even try to understand, maybe he is.

“I’m not paying you,” Minghao says dryly and the kid leans forward, hair falling into his eyes.

“I know. It’s in exchange for Joshua doing my homework.”

“Joshua is doing what?” Minghao asks, and something did happen while he was gone, he understands then; a new kind of routine he has yet to learn.

“My homework? Dude knows a lot of stuff.”

There’s an impressed lilt to the words and Minghao snorts, quickly regaining his composure when the kid frowns, an unsure glint in his eyes.

“I bet. What even is your name?”

“Lee Chan.”

“Great. I’m Xu Minghao.”

“I know,” Chan says with too much enthusiasm and it’s a little unsettling how bright the kid looks, how loud he is, too lively for the subdued colors of the house, for the quiet shadows that dwell there. Yet Minghao finds that he doesn’t mind it too much, almost not at all; a slow smile creeps to his lips as he bends to retrieve his bag, skirting the counter to reach the red curtains.

“I’ll take over in a bit, stay here for now, yeah?”

“Yes sir,” Chan all but yells, and Minghao goes through the curtains, leaving his bag at the foot of the stairs before reaching the kitchen. Jeonghan gasps when he sees him enter, raising from his chair to engulf him in a bone-crushing hug and he too is brighter, Minghao realizes, wondering if this is the kid’s doing, if he spilled everywhere until everything was tinted in his colors.

“I thought you were coming next week,” Jeonghan is saying, guiding Minghao to the table where another stranger is sitting, eyes wide and hands folded in his lap. This one fits, Minghao thinks, soft and quiet and the more he looks the more he finds something familiar about him, something that reaches out yet he doesn’t have time to dwell on it; Jeonghan pushes a glass of water towards him, asking a million questions at once and when did he get so bright, Minghao wonders, when did that quiet dread leave him?

“Wonwoo dropped me off,” Minghao answers eventually, turning then to the stranger at the table, “who’s that? I found another one at the counter.”

Jeonghan laughs, stabbing a mushroom with his chopsticks and waving it in the kid’s general direction.

“That’s Vernon. He’s Chan’s best friend or something.”

“Or something?” Minghao asks with a pointed eyebrow raised, turning to Vernon, who remains quiet despite the burning tip of his ears.

“I don’t know, they’re always together,” Jeonghan continues, shoving the mushroom in his mouth. “It was sort of a buy one get one free kind of deal,” he adds around a mouthful, and Minghao learns about it, then, this new routine that happened while he was gone. Chan just kept coming, trailing Vernon behind him like his shadow and soon they were teaching Joshua video games, making him write their reports and staying for dinner, and with them they brought the noise and the light that had been missed, sorely missed, lost amongst bones and shadows, lost within a darkness too deep to fathom. And it was just the way it was, now, Vernon and Chan showing up on their way back from school, staying until nightfall, spinning tales and laughter.

Minghao looks at Vernon, at the shy smile on his lips and it’s still there, this familiar something, skin prickling when he stares for too long yet he cannot pinpoint what it is and the kid averts his eyes, looking at the food in his plate, pushing around the vegetables with the tip of his chopsticks. Minghao shrugs, looking away as Jeonghan speaks again.

“How was it?” he asks, settling back into his chair, “how’s Wonwoo?”

“He’s good,” Minghao says, watching the light play over his glass. “It was… it was nice.”

It was more than that, Minghao thinks. He would sit cross-legged on the maru floor, doors thrown open on the courtyard were Wonwoo stood with his eyes closed, listening to the beat of the drums and the piercing wails of the _piri_ , his face half hidden under a white headdress. He would start moving, the bells in his hand painting a frantic rhythm over the drums, his hanbok flowing over his limbs, graceful, always graceful and when he spun Minghao could see his face, eyes closed and lips slightly parted, brow furrowed as he called to higher forces. Sometimes he would fall; often, even, at the beginning, and his mother would take over the ritual, with more force, more grace, more wisdom.

Wonwoo would come sit next to Minghao, wordlessly, leaning his head against his shoulder as his mind would slowly come back to himself and Minghao would remain motionless, watching the woman in the courtyard, the gestures of her hands, the glint of the knives she held and Wonwoo would heave a soft sigh then, pulling the headdress off to set it beside him, neatly on the wooden floor. His hand would find Minghao’s and they would stay like this, watching, learning, and the music would echo in their minds long after it had fallen silent. At night they would lay together side by side and Wonwoo would tell him what it was like, would tell him how it felt, the hollow within him filling with the whispering voices of wayward spirits.

And then one day Wonwoo stopped falling, stopped faltering; he stood assured and danced sublimely and spoke with the voices of the dead.

“Is he gonna stay here with you?” Jeonghan is asking now, chin in his palm, and when Minghao acquiesce he lights up, a smile blooming on his lips.

“Good,” he says, “that means you’re not leaving again. I’ve missed you.”

“You did now?” Minghao asks, an eyebrow raised and Jeonghan shoves him with a sheepish look.

“Don’t push it,” he says as he gets up, gathering his empty plate to put it in the sink. Vernon follows him and Minghao had almost forgotten his presence, the kid quiet, almost too much so.

“What’s with him?” he asks, when Vernon excuses himself to go find Chan.

“I don’t know,” Jeonghan answers, “but there’s something, right? Sometimes we brush fingers and it’s like when I touch you, something under the skin.”

Minghao stares at the dark corridor Vernon disappeared in, a slow dread creeping up from the bottom of his stomach. If there’s magic here, he doesn’t want any part of it. He’d had enough, enough fear and sorrow to last him a lifetime and these are the only things magic ever brought him.

He doesn’t really have a choice, though. Just as his affection for Joshua had crept up on him, fierce and capricious, so does his fledgling acceptance of Vernon and Chan. They’re always there, after all, and there’s something familiar in them, something tentative and unsure, something fiercely protective that reminds him of himself, of Jeonghan, of Joshua’s dark eyes and Wonwoo’s intensity. And he knows the way Vernon looks at Chan when he thinks no one is looking, and he knows the sorrow he carries when these looks are never returned. So Minghao lets himself feel what he will, and for a while it is simple, for a while it is nice.

  
  


**5.**

“What’s with the matching black eyes?” Minghao asks when they come in one day, and Vernon blushes, hiding behind Dino. There’s something unsettling about Minghao, something he never quite got used to, not yet, and his stare on him always sets him aflame. So he shuffles behind Dino, who leans against the counter with a conspirational look, Minghao already rolling his eyes at his demeanour.

“We’re fresh from the fight,” Dino says with a flourish as Minghao’s eyes glide over him to Vernon and there’s something dark in his gaze, something that hardens as he takes in the purplish flesh, the slight raise of his cheekbone. Vernon shifts, uncomfortable under such a stare and he doesn’t know against whom this anger is directed at. It’s okay, he wants to say, it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last and it doesn’t really hurt anymore; but he stays quiet, and Minghao’s burning gaze shifts back to Dino, the breath sealed in Vernon’s lungs finally finding a way out.

“I can guess that,” Minghao says coldly. “What happened?”

Dino draws in a breath and Vernon can tell he’s going to launch into one of his patented story, an exaggerated lie that will have Minghao roll his eyes and drop it like everyone always does, but somehow this time it doesn’t feel right, somehow it feels like Minghao already knows and Vernon finds that he doesn’t want to lie, not this time, so he steps forward and speaks over Dino.

“It’s my fault,” he says, and he feels more than he sees Dino turn to him in surprise but his gaze is steady on Minghao’s face, on his fine features, hardening as he continues. “It’s just, some kids at school don’t like me that much. So stuff like that happens, and Dino always jumps in, and we end up matching.”

Minghao blinks slowly, Vernon’s gaze dropping and Minghao’s hands on the counter have curled into fists.

“Why don’t they like you?” he asks in a low voice and Vernon shrugs, Dino stepping protectively in front of him, just like he always does and Vernon sometimes wishes he wouldn’t; it would make things easier, but he could never tell him to leave him alone.

“High school is stupid,” Dino’s saying, voice light but Vernon knows well the rage behind these words, Dino wears it on his skin. “He’s too different, you know, and he’s quiet.”

“And that’s enough?” Minghao asks, but it’s not really a question. It’s enough, everyone knows, enough to be singled out, enough to be preyed on and tormented. Minghao stays quiet for what seems like too long a time, and then he turns on his heels, telling them to wait. Dino leans against the counter, turning to Vernon once Minghao has disappeared through the curtains.

“Maybe he’s gonna give us a gun,” Dino says and Vernon laughs despite himself, shoving him off the counter.

“Keep dreaming.”

“Your mum is gonna freak,” Dino says then, and Vernon had stopped asking a long time ago if his own did not.

“Yeah. I don’t think she’s gonna buy we both walked in the same door at the exact same time.”

“She didn’t the last time,” Dino says with a sigh, returning to his place at the counter. Vernon stares at him, at his wild hair and the purple bruise around his right eye, matching his own. That’s something he’s seen too often, bruises on tanned skin and Dino’s sheepish smile begging him not to ask and he never would, dragging him home instead, where people cared, gentle hands and gentler smiles.

“Dino,” he starts, interrupting himself when Dino’s earnest gaze falls on him and he’s grateful for Minghao’s return, saving him from having to end his sentence, one that would have been too honest. Minghao lays something on the counter, a red string with a single, tiny bell attached to it. When Dino grabs it, the bell is silent.

“What’s this?” he asks, “I was hoping for a glock.”

Minghao snorts, snatching the bell back and turning to Vernon.

“Give me your hand,” he says with such authority that Vernon complies without questions, extending his arm to him. “It will protect you,” Minghao continues as he ties the string around Vernon’s wrist, cold fingers brushing his skin and Vernon shivers.

“Seriously?” Dino says, peering over the proceedings. “I don’t believe in that kinda stuff.”

“I do,” Vernon says simply, bringing his wrist at eye level to stare at the silent bell. It feels strangely warm against his skin and there’s something else, something slightly electric he’d already felt when Minghao’s fingers had touched him. When he looks back Minghao is staring at him with a pondering gaze that Vernon avoids immediately, dropping his arm and his eyes both, but the thank you that leaves his lips is sincere and Minghao’s face mellows, warmth spilling in Vernon’s chest as he looks at the red string around his wrist.

They leave the shop not long after, the waning light of late afternoon swallowed by the encroaching dark. It’s getting colder these days, Vernon wrapping his coat tighter around himself as he spares a glance at Dino, always dressed too light for the weather, threadbare jackets thrown over tired shirts. Dino catches his eye, smiles and Vernon averts his gaze, a pang in his chest. It’s always like this, Dino smiling out of the blue, laughing when Vernon isn’t expecting him to, linking their arms together like it’s the easiest thing in the world and Vernon wishes he could tell him, tell him about little gestures that set his skin on fire and about his heart beating too fast against his ribs, how it’s going to spear itself there one day, how it’s going to wear itself out. How he has nowhere to go, nowhere to hide because Dino is always there and Vernon cannot tear his eyes off him.

But he doesn’t say anything, and when Dino takes his hand to look at the red string tied around his wrist Vernon doesn’t burst into flames, doesn’t fall through the pavement.

“You really believe in it?” Dino asks softly.

“Yeah,” Vernon says, and Dino fingers feel warm against his skin.

“Why?” Dino asks, curiosity in his face but no judgement and sometimes Vernon wishes he would be a little meaner, a little rougher.

“Because,” Vernon says, shrugging, and there is so much he cannot say. “Don’t you think they feel a little magic?”

“They?”

“Minghao, Joshua, even Jeonghan. The house itself, the plants in the kitchen and the tea they always make.”

Dino watches him, gaze thoughtful and he doesn’t say anything back, looking down at the pavement instead and their feet walking in sync.

“Maybe,” he ends up saying, “I just know I like it here. It’s nice.”

“Yeah,” Vernon echoes, “it is.”

“I guess it would be nice, if it was true. If there was, you know, something more.”

Dino’s voice is uncharacteristically quiet as he speaks and Vernon glances at him, at the sad downturn of his mouth and his downcast eyes and he knows what he means, then, he always did. It would be nice if there was something more, something more than a cold house where no love dwells, than a grey world where nothing blooms, something more than his heavy routine, slowly grounding him into dust, slowly turning him jaded and weary despite how merry he tries to be and there was always something desperate in his loud words and louder laughs.

“Do you want to come home with me?” Vernon asks and Dino nods slowly, walking a little closer to him, a little slower, too, as if to stretch the moment, find a respite before he has to perform again, bright smiles and spilling warmth.

That night when Jeonghan closes the shop the cat is at the threshold again and Jeonghan crouches, tilting his head to consider it, consider its troubling eyes and the shine of its fur, consider the red string around its neck and the jingling bell hanging from it.

“So you do belong to someone,” Jeonghan says, the cat tilting its head as if listening intently, the bell tingling with the movement, a crystalline sound louder than it should be. “

This is not it, though, is it?” Jeonghan continues, and the cat stands on its four legs, stretching like all cats do. “I never heard this bell make a sound,” Jeonghan adds as an afterthought and it seems to him that the cat is smiling, tail fluttering. Jeonghan stands up then, walking back into the shop but he doesn’t lock the door, doesn’t roll down the iron shutters. He turns his back to the entrance, cleaning the counter, waiting. Three heartbeats and the jingle of the bell is heard, a chill coursing through the room as the door opens, shadows stretching over the wooden floor.

When Jeonghan turns, Vernon is standing there at the threshold, sheepish, hair falling into his eyes and a silent bell at his wrist.

“I’m not supposed to tell anyone,” he says quietly and Jeonghan sees the fear in his eyes, the tension in his body, ready to run and hide.

“Wise advice,” Jeonghan says and he takes care not to move, hands in plain view at his sides.

“But you’re not gonna hurt me,” Vernon says, and it’s not a question.

“No,” Jeonghan says, shaking his head. “I won’t. No one will, not here.”

Vernon nods, taking a few steps inside and the door closes behind him with the soft tingle of the bells. Jeonghan smiles then, something soft and genuine and Vernon shuffles his feet, not sure where to go from there. But Jeonghan takes the lead out of his hands, gesturing for him to follow and Vernon knows where he’s leading him – the little kitchen, always, with its familiar smells and the flowers drying upside down against the walls. They remain quiet until the tea is served, until the hammering of Vernon’s heart has calmed down. Jeonghan’s gaze is open and patient when Vernon looks at him and this is what trust must look like, he thinks, and it is easy to talk then.

“My family knows. They told me to never tell anyone, to never shift, to hide it as well as I could.”

“But you do it anyway,” Jeonghan says with a tiny smile and Vernon looks down at his tea, biting his lips.

“It’s hard not to. I love it. I only do it at night, though. And something inconspicuous, like a cat. Birds are my favourite, though.”

“Why?”

“They’re so light,” Vernon says, looking up and he knows how he must look, the brightness in his face, the eagerness of his gaze. “When I’m above the city everything looks so small and it’s like nothing matters, like I can go anywhere, be anything.”

Jeonghan nods as if he understands, taking a sip of his tea but when he puts down his mug something has changed, concern in his gaze, hands clasping the mug as if to ground himself.

“Could you always do it?”

“I don’t know,” Vernon says, thoughtful. “I think so. I didn’t always do it, but I think I always could, if that makes sense. I had a lot of recurring dreams, before I did it for the first time. I think I was eight.”

“Was there a tree, in the dreams?” Jeonghan asks, head tilted and when Vernon acquiesce he sighs, a small, weary smile on his lips.

“Do you know it? What is it?” Vernon asks and Jeonghan’s gaze turns faraway, looking back at something Vernon cannot see.

“I don’t know,” Jeonghan says eventually, “we think it’s someone, rather than something.”

“Someone?”

Jeonghan shrugs then, huddling over his mug, watching the steam rise.

“It’s too long a story to tell tonight.”

“It’s not really the sort of night for bed, though,” Vernon says and Jeonghan laughs, shaking his head.

“I guess not. But it’s not entirely my story to tell,” he says and it’s there again, this old sadness, this weary melancholy and again Vernon wonders what has happened in this place, what weight on these people he has come to love, on this house he has come to know as a haven.

“Does Chan know?” Jeonghan suddenly asks, and Vernon shakes his head.

“I didn’t tell him. I’m not supposed to.”

“But you told me.”

“You already knew, didn’t you?”

“I was getting there,” Jeonghan says with a smile and Vernon smiles in turn, something shy, slightly unsure.

“If I told him, I don’t know how he would react.”

“And that scares you.”

“Yeah,” Vernon says, and it is strange to hear it said aloud, this feeling buried inside him, this feeling that eats at him every time he looks at Dino, this fear that maybe, just maybe he wouldn’t like him as much if he knew, that maybe he would find him too monstrous, too strange, and he would stop sleeping next to him, would stop linking their arms together, would stop showing the parts of himself only he knew.

“Because you love him,” Jeonghan says as if it’s nothing at all and Vernon stares at him with wide eyes, lips parted on words that won’t get out. Jeonghan laughs then, hand flying to grab at Vernon’s wrist and he squeezes it reassuringly.

“You’re not as sly as you think you are, I’ve seen the way you look at him. It’s the same way I look at Joshua. It’s okay, really, Vernon. I told you, no one will hurt you here.”

Vernon swallows, looking at Jeonghan’s fingers on his wrist and his hand is warm, warm and soft and maybe he’s right, maybe it is alright.

“You and Joshua…?” he asks then, tentative, the smile on Jeonghan’s face taking on another quality, softer, lovelier.

“Yeah, you hadn’t noticed?”

“No. Dino thinks there’s a bit of a three-way going on, though.”

“Oh wow,” Jeonghan laughs, “wait till I say that to Wonwoo.”

“Wonwoo?”

“You haven’t met him yet. Him and Minghao have a bit of a thing.”

“Oh,” Vernon simply says, staring at the slowly cooling tea in his mug. They remain silent for a little while, until footsteps are heard down the corridor and when they lift their heads Minghao is there, dressed down in track pants and a ratty tee shirt, dishevelled, glasses pushed up over his forehead and he looks young like this, much less intimidating than he usually does in the daytime and night always had a way to soften everything, noises and words and people.

“What are you doing here? Isn’t it passed your bedtime?” he asks, barely looking at Vernon as he goes straight for the fridge, rummaging until he turns back with the leftovers of a creamy cake on a plate and goes to sit at the table, digging in with a tiny fork he grabs on the way.

“How’s your eye?” he asks, mouth full, and something falls into place then, a physical understanding of Jeonghan’s words – he is safe here, safe and accepted and Minghao’s looking at him in earnest, allowing him in his space, in his thoughts, in his heart, maybe, and Vernon’s chest swells with relief, with warmth, with affection. Maybe there is no need for hiding, here, not anymore.

“I just – I turn into a cat sometimes,” he says bluntly, and Jeonghan’s hand tightens on his wrist in a show of support.

“What?” Minghao chokes on a bite, grabbing Jeonghan’s tea to swallow his mouthful and he’s pointing his fork at Vernon then, bits of cake flying on the table.

“I fucking knew something was up,” he says, “you felt like all the other clowns.”

“Are we the other clowns?” Jeonghan asks then, dryly.

“Do you see anyone else lining up?”

Jeonghan mocks whacking him over the head and Minghao shifts his fork on him, holding it like a knife, baring his teeth.

“Also I love Dino,” Vernon continues unhindered, and Minghao shifts his gaze back to him, stabbing his fork into the cake instead of Jeonghan.

“Everyone knows that except him,” he says simply, showing a mouthful past his lips.

“Do you know anything about shapeshifters?” Jeonghan asks then, steam-rolling over Vernon’s shocked noise, and they both stare at Minghao who’s taking his time to chew, swallowing with another gulp from Jeonghan’s mug.

“There’s barely any left. You’re the first one I actually hear of, let alone meet,” Minghao starts, letting his fork rest against his plate with a soft clinking sound. “You know all that stuff about witches having familiars, black cats and such. Those were just shapeshifters. Beyond changing shape you guys sort of… Attract the magic I guess? I don’t really know what it’s all about. Maybe because you can step in both worlds.”

“Both worlds?”

“Here,” Minghao says, having grabbed his fork again, pointing it towards the table, “and the other one, where everything else comes from. The magic and the shadows and the spirits.”

“Is that why the bell you gave me makes noise when I shift, but not when I don’t?” Vernon asks and an excited glint flashes in Minghao’s eyes.

“It does? That’s cool. I call it a spirit bell. It signals that you are blessed, and that you shouldn’t come to harm. It’s not made for human ears but for the magic, for the spirits, for the dead and the shadows that will protect you. You should keep it, even more so now.”

“Why?”

“Witches were burned with their cats,” Minghao says, suddenly grave. “And just as witches and shapeshifters are still around, so are hunters.”

A chill rides on Minghao’s words, descending upon them with the echoes of dying screams and burnt flesh. A shudders goes through Vernon, and then the implication of Minghao’s words finally dawns on him.

“Wait, witches are still around? You guys are witches, aren’t you?”

Jeonghan and Minghao exchange a glance but the hopeful note in Vernon’s words didn’t escape them, and Minghao slowly nods, grabbing back his fork to stab at the cake.

“Not the best of the bunch mind you. I think you’re due for a talk with Joshua, though.”

“Why?”

“He’s like, the OG witch.”

“What?”

“Just talk to him,” Minghao says, putting the fork back against the plate before pushing it towards Vernon. “Do you want cake? You look like you could use some.”

Vernon looks down at the sad lump of whipped cream and genoise sitting in the middle of the ugliest plate he has ever seen, some sort of pink monstrosity with hand-painted flowers and too many butterflies for it not to be a crime. He still lifts the fork, gingerly taking a bite and it’s good, it is, so good and there’s tears in his eyes but he doesn’t know why, and Jeonghan at his side links his fingers with his, tightening his hold on him and he’s warm, so warm; when Vernon looks up Minghao’s smiling at him like he understands and it’s fine, maybe he can cry a little for the things that weighed him down for so long, for the things that set him apart, always and forever, for the place he yearns for yet cannot find. There’s this feeling, though, this feeling slowly blooming under his skin, growing with each day spent in this strange little shop with these strange people who feel like himself does, the same spark in their eyes, at the tip of their fingers.

As Vernon eats, silent tears on his cheeks, Minghao starts speaking to Jeonghan in that soft voice of his, and Jeonghan answers in kind; the conversation weaves around Vernon like a cloak, well-loved voices and soft words he doesn’t need to understand, the smell of tea and the sweet taste of cake on his tongue. And for a while, Vernon belongs, for a while it is fine, this strange magic inside of him, these shapes he loves but has to hide, these feelings buried deep, so deep he doesn’t remember how to speak them. They remain that way long into the night, Vernon’s eyelids weighing heavier and heavier, dozing against Jeonghan’s shoulder. Minghao shakes him then, a hand on his shoulder and Vernon jolts awake, a sheepish smile on his lips and he refuses when they offer to drive him home; it’s fine, the night has always been his.

Vernon runs home on cat legs, wind in his fur and ears plastered to his head and the world always seemed so much better like this, sharper, noises and smells and the shape of the moonlight. And Vernon wishes this would be a gift rather than a curse, something to celebrate rather than hide, something to give him purpose rather than lose him completely. And his tiny heart beats rapidly against the delicate curve of his ribs as he climbs the tree by his window, claws scraping the bark and he bounds on the windowsill, easily, silently, cat eyes blinking in the dark, landing on the shape laying in his bed, the messy hair and the sprawling limbs and Dino never looked peaceful in sleep, jaw clenched and brow furrowed.

Vernon steps off the windowsill and lands on two feet, closing the window behind him and he can still smell the night air on his own skin, feel the chill in his limbs. He steps carefully, the mattress dipping under his weight when he lays down next to Dino who stirs and Vernon stiffens, glancing at him. Dino has a bleary eye open, barely stifling a yawn as he comes closer.

“Where didya come from?” he asks in a tired voice, eyes falling close back again, “you feel cold.”

“I couldn’t sleep, I just went outside to take a walk for a minute.”

“Hm,” Dino says and Vernon can feel his breath against his skin, in the crook of his neck. “One day you’ll get mugged. Or kidnapped.”

“You’ll find me then.”

“Yeah,” Dino says as he shuffles closer still, brow against Vernon’s shoulder, hands folded against his ribs, “gotta tell you I told you so.”

Vernon smiles in the dark, shifting slightly to accommodate Dino next to him and it was always easy, it was always just the two of them and Vernon can feel this dread again, down in the pit of his stomach, what if he told him, what if he told him about the magic, about the magic and the love he harboured for him. _I guess it would be nice,_ Dino had said, _if it was true._

“Dino?”

“Mh?”

 _If there was, you know, something more_ and there is, Vernon wants to tell him, there’s so much more, silent bells with crystalline sounds and silver moonlight on grey fur, tea brewed by witches and a little shop where magic dwells and Dino would be welcome in that world, Vernon knows, he would, and there would be no more need for bruises over his ribs and nights spent hiding in a well-lived room. But the words on Vernon’s lips refuse to leave and he swallows them back; they sink like a stone in his stomach, down a lake of secrets and Dino next to him is too much, too much to lose and Vernon can’t tell him, not yet, not ever.

“Nothing. Good night.”

“Yeah,” Dino says, burrowing against him, huddled under the covers like a small animal, “good night.”

  
  


**6.**

“There is so much more,” Joshua is saying, seated cross-legged on the library floor, the warm light of the waning afternoon lending a reddish hue to his hair, “so much more you can do.”

Vernon is gazing at him quietly, sitting opposite him, careful of the books they have opened before them, of the papers strewn about the floor and he watches as Joshua’s slender finger points at a drawing on a page, a tree whose roots are linked to its upside-down reflection.

“You may step in both worlds at once, not in dreams, not in spirit, but physically.”

“How?” Vernon asks and Joshua’s gaze raises from the book to him, a gentle smile on his lips softening the intensity of his eyes, his haunting eyes where centuries dwell.

“You need to find your true form.”

“My true form?”

“Yes,” Joshua says, reclining back on his hands and he looks young again, “the one that is truly meant for you.”

“How do I find it?”

Joshua tilts his head, thoughtful, and then he shrugs, a helpless little gesture that doesn’t suit him.

“I don’t know,” he says, looking down at the books again.

“Who does?” Vernon asks and he can hear the eagerness in his own voice, he knows the look in his eyes and Joshua smiles at him, thoughtful again, eyes searching.

“The dreams you told Jeonghan you had, about the tree. When did they start? What happened that brought them on?”

“I don’t know,” Vernon says, “nothing happened,” and just as the words leave his lips he knows that he is lying.

“Are you sure?” Joshua insists and he’s not smiling anymore, features settling in something grave, something that has Vernon hesitates, but there is no point in lying, not anymore.

“I drowned, once. It started after that.”

“Did you die?”

“What?”

“Did you die,” Joshua repeats and of course he didn’t, of course not, he wouldn’t be here otherwise but Joshua is looking at him with intent, eyes searching and Vernon remembers, he remembers the waves pulling him under, the mad struggle to the surface amidst the crushing weight of water, he remembers the burn in his chest and his mouth opening on a panicked breath that filled his lungs with salt and he remembers sinking, sinking deep, deep where there was no light, where it was cold and weightless and he remembers closing his eyes, he remembers the numbness, the waves cradling him until there was nothing left to feel.

And he remembers the tears, the tears on Dino’s face when he opened his eyes, the white of his face and the wailing from his lips and these were for the dead, Vernon realizes then, these were for someone lost that should never have come back.

“You did,” Joshua says then, jolting him out of his thoughts, out of his memories and Vernon can still feel the clammy coldness of water against his skin, the burn between his ribs, the taste of salt on his lips. “You did, or you should have. And you came back, and the dreams started.”

“Yes,” Vernon says, the word leaving him in a breath and he feels drained, suddenly, empty, his body folding in on itself as he looks down at his hands, at the books beyond them, at the grain of the wooden floor.

“When did you shift for the first time?” Joshua keeps asking, and Vernon feels tired, so tired, limbs like lead and throat dry.

“I was scared,” he says, pushing the words past his lips, “Dino and I had gotten into a fight with neighbourhood kids and ended up running, but I’d lost him, I didn’t know where he went, and I knew they were after me, and I knew what would happened if they found me. And then I wasn’t running anymore. There was a gust of wind and suddenly I was high, very high up, and my body was feathers and hollow bones and I wasn’t scared anymore.”

“A bird,” Joshua says, “do you remember what kind of bird?”

“No,” Vernon answers, looking up at Joshua, “it’s not like I could see myself.”

“Fair point,” Joshua says as he straightens up, stretching his arms over his head. “Doesn’t help us much, though.”

“Jeonghan says the tree was someone,” Vernon says suddenly, the memory coming up to him, Jeonghan’s soft voice and open face.

“He did?” Joshua says, tilting his head, arms falling back at his sides. “We’re not sure, but that’s what I think. And I think they’re the one you need to ask, to find your true form. They gave it to you, after all.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” Joshua says again, and he starts to tidy the papers before them, closing the books and stacking up the loose pages.

“How do I ask him?”

“That we can help with. Can you stay here tonight?”

“No,” Vernon answers without hesitation. There’s Dino downstairs, waiting for him, leaning against the counter talking with Jeonghan, or with Minghao, or blowing on a cup of tea in the kitchen and Vernon can see him, his too-long hair and the awful sweatshirt he’d been wearing, faded and too big, gaping on his collarbones. His gaze flicks to Joshua who’s looking at him with narrowed, thoughtful eyes before falling back to the stack of books before them.

“Alright,” Joshua says eventually, pushing himself up, dusting the seat of his pants. “Let me know when you can. There is something we might try.”

“What?”

“You’ll see,” Joshua says, mischievous smile and sparkling eyes and it’s strange to see him like this, almost playful, but it fits him and maybe that’s what he was like, that’s how he was meant to be before whatever happened happened, robbing him of his insouciance, sorrowful wistfulness clinging to him like a shadow. Vernon wants to ask, then, ask about the old shadows in the corners of the house, ask about the quiet and the ashes but maybe it is not for him to know; not yet, at least, and he follows Joshua out of the room, down the stairs towards the noise and the light and Dino’s smiling when he enters the room, Dino’s smiling and it’s enough then, it is.

“What did you need to ask Joshua?” Dino asks him when they’re walking side by side towards Vernon’s house, unhurried steps and the chill of the night clinging to their clothes, wind tangling their hair. Vernon glances at Dino and he’s not looking at him, the forced airiness of his tone masking something deeper and Vernon wants to laugh then, because what could have Dino gotten into his head?

“We’re discussing your birthday’s surprise party.”

Dino side-eyes him, shaking his head.

“Three months in advance?”

“It’s gonna be grand.”

“I believe you so much.”

Vernon laughs, shoving Dino’s shoulder who shrieks, shoving him in turn and it’s forgotten for a while, Vernon’s little chat with Joshua, one he will never know how to explain, one he cannot explain, not now, not ever. But it’s not this easily put aside, the words echoing in Vernon’s mind all evening, until Dino is laying next to him in his bed and it had been almost too frequent lately, Dino snuggling up to him until his breathing evened out, fast asleep for once and Vernon would stay as still as he could, skin tingling wherever Dino touched him, muscles tense and he wouldn’t fall asleep but it was so rare for Dino to do so Vernon wouldn’t mind the bags under his eyes in the morning, wouldn’t mind the bleary stares and rumpled look Dino made fun of.

But he doesn’t know, doesn’t know if Dino needs to escape his own home, or if Dino just wants to spend time with him and Vernon so wants it to be the latter; he wants Dino to be here for him, him only and no other reason but he could never ask. So he asks something else instead, something that had weighed on him just as much.

“Do you remember when I almost died?” he asks, gaze trained on the ceiling and he can feel Dino shift at his side, can feel the silence change texture, heavier, charged with something Vernon isn’t sure how to name.

“How could I ever forget?” Dino says then, breaking the strange tension that had fallen over them. “You didn’t ‘almost die’. You were actually dead. You were almost blue. No breath, no nothing.”

There’s a brief, pondering silence, because it couldn’t have been, you can’t come back from the dead yet Vernon knows that Dino is telling the truth.

“Who pulled me out of the water?” he asks eventually, shifting the subject; he doesn’t remember, doesn’t remember anything from the aftermath besides Dino crying.

“Your dad. I went to him screaming my head off and he dived in with his clothes on.”

Dino has shifted closer and if Vernon is still not looking at him he can feel his hair brush his shoulder, can feel his breath on his skin.

“I remember you crying.”

“Yeah,” Dino says, and there’s a bitter laugh in his voice, “I think I cried myself out that day. I haven’t done it since.”

And Vernon knows he’s telling the truth; there was never a tear in Dino’s eyes no matter what happened, no matter the losses and the bruises and the fears.

“What would you have done, if I hadn’t make it?” Vernon asks then and there’s a silence, stretching between them like cobwebs. Dino shifts, closer still, burying his face against Vernon’s shoulder; his voice comes out muffled when he speaks again, muffled and full of sorrow.

“I don’t want to think about it,” he says, and his arm drapes over Vernon’s waist, impossibly close, impossibly tight, as if he wanted to prevent him from slipping, slipping down where he couldn’t reach him and there’s a knot in Vernon’s chest, pushing behind his ribs, a warmth behind his eyes and he closes his eyelids, his hand finding Dino’s wrist, gripping him lightly.

“I wouldn’t leave you alone.”

“I know,” Dino says, too close to Vernon’s skin and the words fan there, warm and trusting.

 _I love you_ , Vernon wants to say then; it sounds like the right time, the perfect time, but he keeps the words tucked there below his heart, fluttering like a wounded bird and maybe one day there’ll be less secrets between them, maybe one day he’ll be less afraid and he’ll let them take flight and it won’t matter if they get shot down. But for now, for now it is better to be quiet and it should be fine, Dino warm and safe beside him, the soft light of the moon streaming through the curtains they forgot to close, raining silver on their tired bodies.

**7.**

“And that’s the tower,” Jeonghan says, putting down beside the rest the sixteenth card of the major arcana. Chan stifles a yawn, glancing at the other cards lined up on the counter, trying to find a more comfortable position on the stool he dragged there; Jeonghan’s stare stays fixed on the card and he remembers then, he remembers the last time he’d drawn it, sending it hurtling to the floor for Joshua to pick up, Joshua back from the dead, swirling in darkness.

“Sorry, what?” he says, having the vague impression to have missed something, the echo of Chan’s voice in his ears.

“I said,” the kid makes a show of repeating himself, rolling his eyes and sprawling over the counter, “what does it mean? It doesn’t look good.”

“No, I guess not,” Jeonghan says, looking back down at the card, at the big house tumbling into the sea, at the rain and the thunder and a long time ago he’d been able to feel it, feel the raging sea, feel the mist on his skin and hear the rumble of thunder, hear the screams and the great collapse.

“It means a time of great upheaval is coming,” he continues, something in his voice catching Chan’s attention, “a great, destructive change, but it doesn’t necessarily means a catastrophe. Sometimes change can be good. Sometimes it is was you need, even if it destroys all that you believe in.”

They fall silent, Chan staring at the card, chin pillowed on his crossed arms and his gaze flicks to Jeonghan’s face; there’s a wistfulness there that didn’t use to be, Jeonghan’s gaze faraway as he traces the card with careful fingers. Chan remembers when he had come the first time, how giddy he’d been, half believing, half not, and Jeonghan had looked almost otherworldly, framed in the soft glow of the lamplights as he’d spread the cards before him, a golden hue to his skin and a spark in his eyes he’d never seen again and Vernon’s words come back to him then, _d_ _on’t you think they feel a little magic_ , and they do, Chan realizes, they really do, too dense shadows and too knowing eyes.

“Why don’t you do it anymore?” Chan asks, jolting Jeonghan who blinks at him, brought back from too deep memories.

“Why don’t you do it anymore?” he repeats when Jeonghan doesn’t say anything, “the tarot readings, I mean.”

“Ah,” Jeonghan says, a fragile smile on his lips, “I can’t anymore.”

“Why not?”

Jeonghan hesitates before answering, casting a glance at Chan but his face is earnest for once, and it’s rare, so rare Jeonghan can only answer.

“The cards stopped talking to me. Or maybe they still do, but I can’t hear them anymore.”

“What happened?” Chan asks after a pause and Jeonghan knows exactly what it is he’s asking, but it is not time for the whole truth, not yet, and his smile blooms wider, picking the next card of the arcana to lay down beside the tower. Behind a woman kneeling on the bank of a river, a star shines at him from its place on the card, bright and silvery, lighting the way.

“I exchanged something for another,” Jeonghan says then, tracing the shape of the star.

“Was it worth it?” Dino asks and Jeonghan nods, putting down the stack of cards he held.

“Yes,” he says, “it was.”

And yet he still misses it, sometimes, the feel of the cards under his hands, their pulsing warmth, the insights they gave him and the trust that they held.

“I did that too,” Chan says then, gaze faraway and when Jeonghan looks at him the kid is staring at the tower, at the raging sea and rumbling thunder and his gaze is old, too old for such a face, something pained and faraway that grips at Jeonghan’s heart and it’s his turn to wonder about him, about what must have come to pass for such a child to look so sad.

“But I don’t know what I lost,” he says, voice quieter than it had ever been.

“What did you ask for?” Jeonghan asks tentatively, matching Chan’s tone. The kid has a glazed look to him and Jeonghan knows he doesn’t see him then, knows that he’s looking back, back at whatever it was that pained him so.

“I asked for someone to stay,” Chan eventually says, averting his gaze and Jeonghan knows who that someone must be, matching black eye and a shy smile, soft hands and quiet words.

“How old were you?”

“About seven? I don’t think I had much to give, at that point. Still don’t.”

Jeonghan remains silent, lips pursued, and Vernon had been eight, he’d said, when the dreams had started. _It’s you_ , he wants to say, _it’s because of you and you didn’t know what you were asking for._ He looks at Chan instead, really looks at him; for a short instant the veneer of raucousness has fallen and behind it Chan looks tired, a deep weariness etched on a too-thin body, bone-deep lassitude that shouldn’t be seen in someone so young and he has the unsettling maturity of those who grew too fast. Jeonghan wants to ask but it’s not his place, not yet, not when Chan is still hiding behind warm smiles and sparkling eyes.

“I think there’s many things you can give,” Jeonghan says, placing the moon beside the star. “At least Vernon seems to think so.”

“He’s just used to me,” Chan says, but there’s pink dusting his cheeks, bringing a smile to Jeonghan’s lips. “And he gives me much more than I do.”

Jeonghan is about to reply when Chan asks about the moon card and Jeonghan knows a change of topic when he hears one. He doesn’t insist, talking about the moon instead, the path she lights in the dark of night, one you must tread with closed eyes. Chan listens, quiet and subdued and Jeonghan just keep talking, about the sun and the judgement that follows, voice soft and peaceful; as Chan’s eyelids grow heavier the light dims in the shop, timid shadows slipping out of grey corners to twine around them like a cloak, soft whispers lulling Chan to sleep, curling around Jeonghan’s fingers as he puts down the last card of the major arcana. He stares at the woman there, Chan’s soft breathing in his ears, he stares and he wonders when he too will feel whole, when will he feel unbroken. The card stares back, mute and blind.

There’s footsteps behind him, a draft from the curtains opening and he turns, Joshua and Vernon stepping into the room, Vernon’s eyes widening at the sight of Chan, asleep against the counter.

“What is he doing here?” he asks, voice quiet, turning to Jeonghan.

“He was looking for you. I didn’t tell him you were here, so he waited in case you’d come, since you didn’t answer his texts. I think he was worried.”

Vernon’s gaze falls back to Chan, hands twitching at his sides and Jeonghan smiles; it would be so much easier, he thinks, so much easier if there were no secrets to keep. He sighs, pushing himself off the counter, gathering the cards together and it’s only when he puts them back in their box that he catches Joshua’s eyes, something unsure in the other’s gaze, flitting from the cards to him.

“Chan was bored and asked about the cards,” he says by way of explanation, putting them back on the high shelf and he hadn’t touched them since that day Joshua had come, he realizes then; there had been no point, and this small yearning is still there, this nostalgia for something lost, truly lost.

“I should – I should wake him up,” Vernon says, interrupting their exchange; yet he doesn’t move from his place, staring at Chan’s peaceful face with a crease on his brow, something hesitant in his face as he’d never seen him sleep; not like this, at least.

“You don’t have to,” Jeonghan says, “he can stay here. He probably won’t wake up anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

Vernon’s gaze snaps to Jeonghan, who bites back a smile.

“He was being too loud,” Jeonghan says, straight-faced, “so I chloroformed him.”

“Wha-” Vernon starts just as Joshua bursts out laughing and Chan doesn’t even stir at the loud sound, Vernon’s eyes widening.

“I’m kidding,” Jeonghan says mercifully, “he’s just really tired, and the house likes him. He’ll sleep well, here, if you agree to let him.”

“Yeah, okay,” Vernon says after a pause; Jeonghan expected questions, but the kid remains quiet and he must trust them, Jeonghan thinks then, trust them so completely for letting them take care of Chan. And this thought comes with a vague worry, a shudder in his spine; they can’t let him down, can’t let them down, no concession allowed and Jeonghan realizes then how important this is, this here and now, realizes what he did when he let Vernon into the shop, when he let Chan sit at his counter. They’re entangled, now, inescapably, and it is too late to go back even if he wanted to. Joshua interrupts his thoughts then, moving closer to Chan, gesturing with a question in his face. Jeonghan nods, Vernon vaguely helping when they move Chan carefully, bringing him up the stairs to the library sofa where they lay him carefully, Vernon lingering near the door as if he didn’t dare to enter.

“Your shadows like him,” Joshua says then, quietly, eyes trained on Chan’s face.

“Yeah,” Jeonghan says, tucking the blanket higher over Chan’s shoulders, “he’ll sleep well, they’ll take care of it.”

Joshua nods, and before he can turn away Jeonghan grabs his wrist, glancing at Vernon lingering at the door but the kid still isn’t entering, and so he talks for Joshua’s ears only.

“It’s his fault, you know,” he whispers, brushing back hair from Chan’s eyes, “you said Vernon’s dreams and shapeshifting started after he drowned, after he almost died and came back.”

Joshua nods, eyes trained on Jeonghan’s face, intent.

“I told Dino about about exchanging my talent for something else. He said he did the same thing. He said he asked for someone to stay. And I think it was Vernon, and I think he was heard.”

Joshua stays quiet, three heartbeats and his eyes fall back to Chan, to his peaceful, sleeping face.

“What did he exchange?”

“He says he doesn’t know. I think I do.”

“What do you mean?” Joshua says quietly, stealing a glance over his shoulder at Vernon who looks back with eyebrows raised.

“I think he’d already paid enough, by that time,” Jeonghan says, and he tugs on Chan’s awful sweater, past his collarbones and there’s a bruise there, the pale yellow of healing. Joshua sucks in a breath, exchanging a glance with Jeonghan and he’s right, he knows, he is; there was nothing to take that hadn’t already been stolen.

There’s voices at the door then, and when they turn Minghao has joined Vernon; he’s in his laid-back clothes, glasses askew on his nose and a cup of coffee in hand, the smell drifting to the sofa.

“What are you guys doing?” he asks, bringing the cup to his lips and swallowing with a grimace.

“Chan fell asleep downstairs,” Jeonghan says, walking up to them with Joshua on his heels, “we brought him here.”

“Ah,” Minghao says, “I should open a bed and breakfast and get some money out of this.”

“Sorry,” Vernon says immediately, Minghao smiling behind his cup.

“I’m kidding, it’s fine.”

“We’re all here,” Joshua says then, looking between them and Jeonghan knows what he means then; Minghao must, too, pulling his coffee cup away from his face and he’s the one who asks, righting his glasses on his nose.

“Should we try?”

“Try what?” Vernon asks, glancing worriedly between them, not liking the thoughtful gazes and the determined set of Joshua’s jaw.

“Try to find your true form,” Jeonghan says to him, voice soft and face comforting. Vernon doesn’t need to be comforted though, not yet, and the hush that falls over the three men furthers his worries; there’s something looming in their poise, in the tenseness of their limbs, the uneasiness of their gaze. They’re buying time, Vernon understand, buying time before plunging into whatever it is they’ve decided must happen, and even the house seems to be holding its breath, too still shadows and an eerie quiet.

“How do we do that?” Vernon asks then and his voice sounds subdued, swallowed by the silence that has slithered around them unnoticed. Minghao clears his throat, a sound that has them all look at him and there’s a smile on his lips, soft and wistful.

“We make you dream,” he says simply, yet there’s a weight behind these words, a solemnity reinforced by their gazes turning to Vernon, grave and appraising and it’s this that decides him, more than anything else – the questions in their faces, can he do it? Is he strong enough? And there is no doubt in Vernon’s mind that he is, that he’s ready; he’d been standing on the border of this world and the other long enough, teetering on the edge and never managing to truly belong to either one and it was time for a change, despite all that it may bring; more questions, new fears, at least it would be change, at least it would be different; days bleeding into one another and sometimes he didn’t know how much time had passed, sometimes it felt like everything was exactly the same as it ever was.

“Okay,” he says, voice clear and assured, “make me dream, then.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick disclamer regarding all the shamanist elements. It all comes from what I've seen/read/witnessed about Korean shamanism but I'm not an expert and it has been heavily altered to fit the needs of the fic. I hope I didn't disrespect it in any way but if something doesn't sit well with you feel free to tell me. 
> 
> I still have the problem with the odd spacing as well so I'm sorry if I didn't catch everything.
> 
> Anyway I hope you will enjoy this chapter, and thank you so much for reading and commenting!

**1.**

They had waited for the span of three heartbeats, as if allowing Vernon time to change his mind, before they had taken him down the corridor. The door they stop at opens on Minghao’s room. It feels like a little transgression, just as that first time Vernon had stepped behind the red curtains downstairs; a new territory, one he’d always thought off limits and the room feels the way Minghao looks.

“Why is it always my room?” he hears the man himself mumble in the background, Joshua snorting as he makes his way in, bending over the desk to retrieve candles from a box.

“It’s the biggest one,” Joshua says, passing the candles to Jeonghan who sets them up at each corner of the room. It seems like a well-oiled routine; after the candles there’s flowers and Joshua taking place at the foot of the bed, Jeonghan lighting the wicks as Minghao arranges an incense burner and there it is, Vernon thinks then, this strange, yearning feeling in the pit of his stomach, stirring each time he’d step into the shop.

He watches them work, Jeonghan holding out a lighter to Minghao before he can even think to ask for one, Joshua smoothing the sheets where Jeonghan had barely glanced and they know each other so well, Vernon thinks, weaving in and out of easy conversation and light-hearted banter, the waning afternoon framing the scene in a dream-like, golden light; Vernon knows this dance, had already seen it – it was Minghao taking a sip of Jeonghan’s tea without asking, Jeonghan thoughtlessly wearing Joshua’s coat, Joshua picking up a book Minghao had just put down. They fit, seamlessly, secure in their place and their affection for each other, no place for doubt there, no buried secrets and Vernon wants to belong just like they do, find a place where people know his name and when they speak it his soul is stirring.

Minghao is gesturing for him then, Vernon gingerly stepping into their circle and it seems there’s room for him there; he lays down on the double bed and the pillows smell faintly of lavender and something else, something entirely Minghao and it shouldn’t be this comforting. Jeonghan brushes his hair back, putting upon his brow a crown of mallows and the fresh petals tickle Vernon’s skin, the faint musky smell of the leaves mixing with the lavender and his eyelids are already growing heavy; there’s a voice near his ear telling him to close his eyes and relax, and there’s another one, farther away, words he cannot decipher rising in songs and the undercurrent of a plea. It’s this one he follows, this one that leads him into slumber, soft smells and a warm hand on his arm. And then, he dreams.

 _T_ _here is neither up nor down, neither left nor right. It might be the sky, Vernon thinks, and his body is feathers and hollow bones._ _He lets himself be born on warm currents_ _flowing between his ribs,_ _searches for the sun_ _yet_ _there is nothing, nothing but the wind whispering in his ears, cradling his_ _swift_ _body and Vernon doesn’t bat his wings; where the wind leads he will follow._ _And then there is something, suddenly, as if it had always been there and Vernon had simply been blind. A tree, heavy branches where centuries hang twisting towards his purple sky and the wind turns into whispering shadows, dragging him down to earth._

 _Vernon alights there, amongst brittle bones and grey moss where his_ _toes sink._ _He flutters, puffing up his feathers and there’s something to be felt, something pulsing down into the earth and up into the sky, through the branches of the tree where sap should be; a pulse, a warmth he knows well because he already felt it, under Jeonghan’s fingertips, Minghao’s cold hands and Joshua’s warm_ _ones_ _. Inside himself, too, like a second heartbeat in the marrow of his bones. He wants to ask, but his throat is empty of words, a trill escaping the shape of his beak and he doesn’t remember, he doesn’t remember what else he was, what else he could be._ _T_ _he branches are stirring under an unfelt wind and there’s shadows pooling amongst the roots, whispering softly to each other; something is waking_ _there,_ _a voice in his head, a soft voice, a voice he had heard before._

_“You are back,” it says, and there is no surprise there – it was waiting._

_“You are back, but you have forgotten.”_

_Forgotten what? Vernon wants to ask, but he still has no_ _words_ _. Yet the voice seems to hear him, seems to understand the trills and the chirps and there’s an amused lilt to its weary words._

 _“You found me in a dream, but you should not need it_ _._ _You are from this place, after all._ _”_

_I am? Vernon asks, and there’s a pause, a silence where shadows curl, warm and pressing against his frail body._

_“I should have gotten your life, but someone asked for it back. Someone wanted you to stay, and I relented.”_

_Why?_

_“I did not know, at first. I do now.”_

_There is another pause, one where sadness dwells and the shadows shiver, weaving tighter into each others._

_“I asked for the same thing, once,” the voice resumes, “and I know how it feels to be denied.”_

_Vernon’s small heart sinks, drowned in the sorrow hanging from each words, turning him from air into earth and he closes his bright eyes, burrowing amongst the shadows, amongst the bones and the grey moss._

_“I had centuries to mourn,”_ _the voice says, “_ _but some losses are never soothed._ _This would have been one of th_ _ose_ _,_ _one of_ _those wh_ _ich_ _should never happen, those we can never forgive_ _._ _”_

_A silence, again, and then, almost teasing, “do you remember?”_

_A_ _nd before Vernon can answer, the dream shivers and dissolves into another. Not a dream, though, Vernon understands right away. Not a dream – a memory._

_Dino, shorter and skinnier, so much younger too, pointy elbows and scrawny ribs, dressed in Vernon’s old pyjamas, some silly green thing with spikes on the spine and a hood that made you look like a dinosaur should you put it on, albeit none of the known ones. And he himself was there too, laying on his childhood twin bed, deep bruises under his eyes and it had been the day after, he’d sle_ _pt_ _for_ _so long; Dino had been there, rumpled bedding on the floor and he wouldn’t go home, bruises on his arms and_ _too much_ _worry lending a feverish light to his wide eyes._ _He wasn’t Dino yet, he was just Chan, but when Vernon had finally opened his eyes Chan had the pyjamas’ hood pulled down, sitting crossed-legged on the floor and that’s the first thing Vernon had seen, and that’s the first word that had left his lips, in a raw voice he’d only recognized as his own because it hurt on the way out._

 _H_ _e hadn’t gone to school for a week, and Chan_ _had_ _kept coming, kept sleeping in the same old pyjamas and it had stuck; Dino, a name only for Vernon to call and it had felt as if Chan was his own, his own to call and to love and he’d known then, he’d already known what these feelings were._

 _And there had been the bird, too. A small, wounded thing, broken wings and_ _a_ _torn leg Dino had found on the side of the road, still breathing, chest fluttering and he had cupped his hands around it and brought it to Vernon’s bedroom. They’d hidden it in a nest of soft tees and tried their best, but their best hadn’t been enough. The bird had died, but at least it hadn’t died alone on the side of_ _a concrete_ _road, it had died fed and warm and loved, too, Vernon remembers their tears and the first tear in his heart._

 _H_ _e hadn’t noticed it, at first. He’d noticed only after they had buried the bird near the river, the first of their shared secret_ _s_ _; he’d noticed when he’d stripped his muddy clothes and watched his scrawny child body in the bathroom mirror; it was there, stark below his ribs, a raised scar with no wound to match_ _and Vernon knows now what the tree is showing him._

“ _It was a gift,” the voice says, and when Vernon blinks he’s back amongst the bones and the shadows clos_ _e_ _over him like a cloak. “It was a gift, and it was the first but not the last, was it?”_

 _And it wasn’t. There had been the neighbours’ cat, hi_ _t_ _by a car, its guts spilled on the side-walk and they had put_ _it_ _out of its misery;_ _Vernon had noticed the faded scar near his ankle three days later. There had been a sick, old crow they had found tangled in bright plastic string and they had fed it until it died and gave Vernon the scar behind his left knee, the one that got matched by a neighbourhood_ _puppy_ _they would hear cry under kicks, a_ _puppy_ _they had stolen from its yard one night, and whose new owner had send them a_ _letter_ _when_ _it ha_ _d died, years later, after a full,_ _happy_ _life._ _And other cats, other dogs, other birds and insects too, and each time he would get a faded scar, and each time he could borrow their shape, make them live once again, run like they did and soar like they used to._ _And that first one, that first tiny bird, wounded and lost, that first one must have been what Joshua_ _had_ _called his true form, the scar it had left_ _deeper_ _than the others._

_I don’t remember, he tells the tree in his wordless voice, I don’t remember how the bird had looked liked._

_The wind rises like a sigh, evergreen leaves fluttering in the old branches and the voice speaks, almost faded – the dream is ending, Vernon knows, yet a part of him doesn’t want to leave; this feels like home, soft bones and warm shadows, this feels like a place where he belongs._

“ _Someone does,” the tree is saying, “someone remembers.”_

  
  


**2.**

Chan opens his eyes on a high ceiling and it takes him a while to gather where he is, softness under his back and the lovely light of early evening raining down into the room. Minghao’s library, and Chan sits up, shadows falling from him to disappear in the corners. The room is quiet, almost too much so; Chan has the distinct feeling that something is happening – a breath held, too quick heartbeats, walking on tiptoes in the middle of the night.

He swings his legs to the floor, naked feet on the smooth wooden boards and it’s then that he realizes something else has fallen from him. The jittery feeling at the back of his mind, the tenseness of his shoulders, always poised for running; it has subsided, receded to darker corners where he cannot reach. He feels appeased, and he’d forgotten what it tasted like. Chan remains on the couch for a moment more, unsettled by this sudden ease, waiting for his edginess, for the habitual fear he lives in to creep back from the depths of his guts yet there is nothing, nothing but a warm emptiness.

Something happened, then, something happened to him and he remembers Vernon’s words that many nights ago; _they feel a little magic,_ and it’s true, that’s what it feels like, something unknown, something unseen yet benevolent Chan feels on his skin, feels here in the air of the room and he’d never slept that well, always one eye open, ears pricked for the sounds that would tell him it was time to hide; a door banging, too heavy footsteps on creaky floorboards, voices rising in yells. But he’d felt safe, here, and he has the clear, remembered feeling of something pulling him under, something warm and caring, something that had loosen his limbs and shut off his mind.

He takes slow steps upon the floor, feeling more awake each passing second; the corridor is quiet when he opens the library’s door, none of the usual noises of the house – voices in the kitchen, water in the pipes, studious sounds from Minghao’s office. He walks down the corridor, fingers tracing a line on the wall and there’s a door ajar near the staircase; Chan slows down, walking silently like he knows how, quiet steps not to wake the man sleeping on the derelict couch and he’d never gotten caught. He doesn’t really know why he’s hiding, doesn’t know what he’s spying on yet something pushes him to it all the same, a feeling at the back of his neck, one he’d learned always to listen.

Soft, whispering voices slipping through the crack in the door and Chan crouches against the wall, ears pricked, breath caught in his lungs.

“What did you see?” a voice’ is asking. Minghao’s voice, Chan recognizes, and his stomach sinks when he hears the one answering.

“I saw a big, old tree. It spoke to me. It told me I shouldn’t have to come in dreams, that I was from this place but I had forgotten. It said it should have gotten my life, but that someone asked for it back.”

Chan hears his own name then, in a murmur that belongs to Jeonghan and the simple syllable had never sounded so sad.

“Yeah,” Vernon says, “it must have been him. The tree said it had asked for the same thing, once, and he’d been denied. That’s why he accepted. He knew what it felt like.”

“Did it show you your true form?” Joshua asks then, after a silence where Chan forgets to breath. He exhales slowly, out of his mouth, not making a sound.

“It made me remember. But I didn’t… Dino and me, we saved a bird once, but it died. I got a scar, and it was the first shape I could turn into. But I don’t… I don’t remember what kind of bird it was. I can’t feel which soul it is.”

“A scar?” Jeonghan again, curious, and Chan can picture him so easily it almost hurts; the tilt of his head, the shine in his eyes and he wonders when did he grow so attached, when did these people stole into his mind, into his heart.

“Yeah. When the bird died I got a scar. Same for the neighbour's cat we found half dead, and… Every time, I got a scar, but there were no wounds, and then I could take on their shape. The tree said it was a gift.”

“You helped them pass, ended their suffering. They gifted you their shape in return. A part of their soul that stuck to you.”

There’s a silence after Joshua’s words and Chan understands then, what they are talking about. It dawns on him without a grand entrance, as if it had always been there in front of him and he’d just had to open his eyes. _Don’t you think they feel a little magic_ , Vernon had said, and _you do too,_ Chan had almost answered, _you feel like them, safe and sad and_ _otherworldly._ But he had said nothing, and they had carried on as they always did, lying side by side in the dark, listening to each other’s breathing and Chan hadn’t asked, and Vernon hadn’t offered, and the corridor now felt cold and hostile in the failing light.

“Chan might know, right?” Jeonghan again, and his own sad name on his tongue. “Maybe he remembers what king of bird it was.”

“I can’t ask him,” Vernon says, urgency seeping into his voice. “He’ll wonder why I want to know, and I can’t – I don’t want him to find out,” he finishes lamely, and maybe that’s what hurts Chan the most, those words out of Vernon’s mouth, those adored lips he’d stare at, sometimes, when Vernon wasn’t looking, when he was safe in the dark. Chan didn’t think his heart could get anymore broken, only ashes left in their cage yet embers must have still been flaring, and he didn’t think there was still pain left to feel yet his chest aches, his hand coming up to smooth the sting there, his heart fluttering like a wounded bird, like that wounded bird he’d found so many years ago, struggling with broken wings and he’d wanted to save it, he’d wanted so badly to save it.

Chan rises to his feet, taking a breath he doesn’t care if anyone hears, and he pushes the door open, four pairs of startled eyes landing on him as he stands on the threshold. He cannot look at them. He looks at the crown of mallows instead, resting on the bedsheets near Vernon’s hands, those hands he’d held under every excuses he could find and he remembers their touch, smooth and soft and warm and so unlike anything he’d known before.

“It was a sparrow,” he says when the silence stretches, heavy, unbearably so. “An old world sparrow. I looked it up, afterwards. The kind that lives in trees.”

“Chan–” Jeonghan starts, moving off the chair he was sitting on and it should have been Vernon, Chan thinks in passing, it should have been Vernon speaking his name but it’s not and so he smiles like he always does, waves a hand like he always does, and _I’m fine,_ he says, like he always does. And then, he leaves. There’s a scramble of feet, someone calling him back but when Chan runs he’s never caught and that’s his own magic, he thinks wildly, disappearing whenever he wants to, and he’s still running well after the shop’s bell tingles behind him, well after he reaches the end of the street, well after he’s sure no one is following.

But he has nowhere to go, Chan realizes, nowhere to hide; every place he can think of Vernon is there – the riverbank where they like to lay down and stare at the sky, the roof of their old middle school you can climb if you know how, the park near Vernon’s home and the old swings no sane child would use so they would, laughing, aiming sky high. There is nowhere to go, and Chan stops running, breathing fire into his lungs as he leans against the nearest wall, willing his heart to slow down before it spears itself on sharp ribs, willing his mind to come back from the flight. He left his bag in the shop, he realizes then, with his phone and his keys and if he wanted to go home he couldn’t. But he doesn’t want to, he realizes, he cannot go home, not after what he felt back there waking from too deep a slumber; safety, warmth, a lessening of everything inside him, every fear and every anger and every sorrow.

So Chan crouches against the wall, hands pressed against his face, waiting for something he knows won’t happen; an answer to rise from the grey side-walk under his feet, from the bricks digging into his back, something to explain the sorrow rising like smoke in his chest, the depths of loss he feels opening within him. He had never wanted Vernon to be afraid of him. Because that’s what it had been, fear riding on his words and _I can’t ask him_ , he’d said , and Chan could see his wide, worried eyes and the tightness in his shoulders, _I don’t want him to find out_ and there had been sorrow too, and Vernon wasn’t supposed to feel like this, not because of him, not ever. Something must have gone wrong along the way, something fundamental and Chan doesn’t know what he has done to instill such fear, such mistrust in the one person he always wanted to shield.

There’s the tingle of a bell near his ear and when Chan looks up a grey cat is staring at him from a few feet away, tail curling under the night breeze. Chan extends his hand, slowly, the cat inching closer and closer until his head bumps against Chan’s outstretched hand.

“You should be less trusting,” Chan tells the cat in a whisper, “some people aren’t nice to those weaker than them.”

The cat answers by purring and Chan lowers himself on the asphalt, sitting cross-legged, coaxing the cat into his lap. The animal settles after a hesitation, and Chan scratches it behind the ears, softly, until it purrs again.

“I had a cat like you, once. My dad drown it. See what I mean about not trusting anyone? You can never know.”

 _You can never know,_ and maybe that’s the lesson he’d taught Vernon all these years, showing up on his doorstep with bruised skin and scared eyes one too many times and he’d hidden things from him, too, the same lies he’d fed everyone else and what kind of trust could he have expected from such a friendship?

“You’re warm,” he tells the cat, because it’s true. “Do you know where I could sleep tonight? I can’t go home.”

The cat blinks up at him, huge green eyes seemingly asking _why not?,_ and Chan smiles, resuming the scratching behind the pointy ears, the cat closing his eyes in bliss.

“I don’t have my keys. But I don’t want to go back there anyway. Not right now. So yeah,” Chan continues, hand falling to the cat’s back and the soft fur there, “where will you sleep tonight? Can I come?”

The cat stands off his lap then, stretching before it starts walking down the street and Chan watches it go, startling when the cat turns back to stare, unblinking green eyes and Chan thinks wildly that it wants him to follow. So he stands up, because he has nothing better to do, because this body he always listens to tells him this is the right thing. Chan keeps his eyes on the back of the cat, not caring where it takes him, not until the streets start looking startlingly familiar, not until a quiet dread rises from his stomach, not until the little grey cat stops in front of a house he knows well and Chan stares as the cat vanishes in the tall grass, reappearing near the old tree next to an opened window. His stomach sinks as the cat gracefully scales the tree, jumping from high branches onto the windowsill and into the room.

He could have run again, and he knows Vernon wouldn’t have come for him this time. But Chan cannot, feet rooted to the side-walk and it’s a while before he manages the few steps to the door. It’s so strange, ringing the bell like he did a hundred times, watching it open on Vernon’s dad smiling at him like he always does, a dance much too mundane for what he knows is waiting for him and he feels remote, so remote from himself, watching all this unfold on a TV screen and he follows himself up the stairs, follows himself to Vernon’s door and he doesn’t knock before pushing it open; he never had to.

Vernon is sitting cross-legged on his bed and he looks the way Chan feels – petrified, eyes wide and swirling yet his jaw is set, brows furrowed and Chan knows this look; Vernon’s bracing himself for whatever it is he thinks Chan will tell him, bracing himself for the hurt and the loss and all the damage of buried secrets. And suddenly, Chan is exhausted. Suddenly he doesn’t care about all the lies and all the hidden things, he doesn’t care about the fear and the worry; Vernon is here and he came to get him and Chan knows what he would feel like were he to touch him, he knows his smell and the way he looks in the dark, he knows each of his smiles and all his favourite things and it’s enough, it is, he doesn’t care about the rest.

And so he steps into the room, Vernon tensing as he closes the door, he steps into the room and he stands at the edge of the bed and when he speaks his voice sounds faraway to his own ears.

“I don’t – it’s okay you didn’t tell me. I’m not even sure what it is, really, that you didn’t tell me. I don’t… I just. I don’t want you to leave. I don’t want you to be scared of me. I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide things and I – I’m sorry that I made you feel like you had to. I thought I had shown you that if it’s you, that if it’s you everything’s fine. But I didn’t and you were scared and I’m sorry.”

“I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone,” Vernon blurts, almost startled at the sound of his own voice and he looks near bashful, looking down at his hands in his lap.

“But you’re not anyone, and I still didn’t tell you. I wasn’t scared because of anything you did. But it’s just… You never know, right?” he ends with a wince, sparing a glance at Chan who smiles, a pained smile that tugs at his face and something wavers in Vernon’s eyes, something that has him extend a hand yet Chan doesn’t take it, not yet, arms frozen at his sides.

“Dino,” Vernon says, and the word spills warmth between Chan’s ribs, just like it always does, “I wasn’t afraid of you. I wasn’t afraid you’d hurt me, not intentionally. But I was afraid it would change things. I was afraid that you would… I don’t know, that you wouldn’t act the same, if you knew, and I didn’t want that. Because, because… yeah. I just didn’t want to.”

Vernon’s looking down at the hands he brought back into his lap, folded into each other and he looks so small, suddenly, small and young and afraid and Chan never wanted to see him like this, not him. He finally moves, the mattress dipping under his weight as he sits, Vernon sparing him a careful glance.

“Back when you said–” Chan starts, interrupting himself to swallow around the dryness in his throat, “back when you said the shop felt magic, you know, and I told you it would be nice if it was. If there was something more, like, something more than what we’ve been given. I meant it. And I’m– I’m glad it’s you. I’m glad it has happened to you.”

“It has happened to you too,” Vernon says then, in a whisper Chan barely catches. “It’s happened to you too. Wherever I go, you go.”

Chan laughs then, something small and barely there and it would be nice if it were true, but Chan knows this is the one thing they won’t be able to share, he knows that it was always going to happen. It’s fine, it is, Chan can watch from the sidelines, and he finds that he wouldn’t mind so much if he became just a memory, as long as it’s a happy one.

“I’m not sure I can follow you into magic land.”

“You already did – the shop, Minghao and everyone, they like you.”

“It’s different. I’m just there. You… you’re part of it.”

Vernon grabs at his wrist then, something tight and possessive, almost desperate and Chan wonders where does that come from – he’d always been the one who needed Vernon, needed him for shelter, for warmth, for shared silences and loud laughter; Vernon had the shape of the hole in his heart, he’d fit there so easily Chan had never wondered about the name of those feelings, about the loud beating of his heart in the middle of the night, about the sharp pang in his chest each time Vernon would look at him, shining silver in the moonlight, lips smiling and eyes alight.

“I don’t want you to change,” Vernon’s saying, the same urgency Chan had already heard in the corridor of Minghao’s house seeping back into his voice, “that’s why I didn’t tell you. I want you to stay with me. Like we’ve always been.”

And Chan looks at him, really looks at him, the soft brown eyes, the faded bruise on his right side, the clean, polished contour of his bones under golden skin and there’s shadows dancing over his features as Vernon moves, lips parted on words that won’t get out. And Chan has never loved something so much, he never has and even if he wanted to he couldn’t let go. Yet he knows what his own world is made off, sharp edges and broken skin and he’d tried so hard to keep that corruption from Vernon, he’d tried so hard, and now he knew where Vernon belonged; a quiet, warm house where magic dwelled, the smell of tea and lemon, old books and the slanting light of waning afternoons, curled up on sunken couches with people like him, people like him who loved him. Himself had no place in it, he was the passer-by glancing through the window on his way somewhere, wondering what it would feel like inside.

“Chan,” Vernon says, almost pleading, and the name jolts him; they’re not kids anymore, dressed in silly pyjamas and spending the night whispering, bleary eyes in the morning, falling asleep on school benches. They grew, and their feelings grew with them, and Vernon didn’t need him fighting off bullies anymore. There were others, more suited to protect him, a silent bell on his wrist and Vernon didn’t need him to make him feel like he belonged anymore, there were others with whom he truly did. Chan feels unmoored, suddenly, drifting away, dissolving in the warmth of the room as his world rearranges itself, a world where he isn’t needed anymore and he wonders if he can go consenting, if he can let himself fade for something else, something better to bloom for Vernon in his stead.

“Chan,” Vernon repeats and there’s a new lilt to his voice, something sterner, calling him back to the moment and Chan’s gaze falls back on him, taking in the stubborn set of his jaw, the furrowed of his eyebrows and Chan knows this expression, Vernon would put it on every time Chan got stuck in his own head, beat himself down, lost his way in his own mind.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking but I can tell it’s stupid,” he says, an edge of anger creeping into his voice and somehow it feels comforting, Chan leaning in to hear better, “I don’t care if I start to ride broomsticks, cackling in the moonlight, I want you home when I come back with stolen babies. I don’t need you to do anything. I just need you to be there because nothing will ever be better without you, whatever you think.”

Chan laughs then, something slightly hysterical that has Vernon smile hesitantly before he keeps talking.

“Even Jeonghan knows it, he said, he said we were a buy one get one free kind of deal.”

“He said that?” Chan keeps laughing, too many thoughts swirling in his mind but if he just looks at Vernon it feels almost fine.

“Yeah. And they like you, they do, and you think you have nothing to do with this but it’s not true. You’re the one who brought home all those animals. You’re the one who – you brought me back, when I was dying.”

Blue lips and closed eyes, no breath in the lungs, blood stilling in the veins and the clammy feel of cold, wet skin under his fingers, panicked screaming in his ears and the little chest bending under forceful CPR and Chan died too, that day, a part of him chipped away never to come back. And he’d never asked for anything before, not ever, not when harsh words were flaying his ears, not when harsher hands where splitting his skin, not when he was hiding from too loud noises and fearful footsteps; but he had that day, he’d asked for the chest to rise, for the heart to beat again, for the eyes to open and for the hand to squeeze his fingers back. He’d asked for Vernon to stay, and he’d offered up all that he had; he would have gone consenting in his place if he had to. And something had heard, something had heard what he’d asked for.

“Vernon,” Chan says, and the warm brown eyes fall on him, a little worried, a little fearful. “Vernon, I don’t want to hold you back. I don’t want my rotten luck to wreck yours. But if – if you want me to stay, I will. You stayed for me, too. You came back when I called.”

The hand on his wrist relaxes for but a second before it tugs, pulling him forwards until they tumble into each other. Vernon lays back down, bringing Chan with him and Chan settles against him, fits himself into his side, watches the rise and fall of his chest. He brings a hand to the soft skin of Vernon’s neck, where he can feel his heart beat.

“I thought you would be way more freaked out about the whole turning into cats thing,” Vernon says eventually, voice hesitant as if Chan had just forgotten and mentioning it would bring it all crashing down.

But Chan only sighs, settling more comfortably, sparing a thoughtful second before he answers.

“Yeah, you would think so. I think I’m too busy freaking out about you finding a place to belong where I can’t follow. Somehow that took precedence over the whole shapeshifting thing but like, give it a couple hours and I’ll probably have a nervous breakdown.”

Vernon laughs then, the sound ricocheting against Chan’s ribs, spilling warmth into his being and he closes his eyes, parting his lips as everything slots into place.

“But I think I’m not as surprised as I could be. It’s corny but you always felt – you always felt special, to me. Even before the whole coming back from the dead thing, you were already kind of magic. You know no one would talk to me, before you did? We were the worst family on the block. But you didn’t mind. And then the whole thing happened and I think… You should have died, you know. But you didn’t. I think I knew, deep down, that it wasn’t the CPR that brought you back. You know, just like I don’t believe in ghosts but I wouldn’t go spend the night into a haunted house because why take any chances. This type of stuff, you don’t believe, but you still kinda do. So it just… you know. It makes sense.”

There is no answer, Vernon still and silent beside him and Chan is about to open his eyes when Vernon shifts, turning on his side, tucking him into his chest, impossibly close and Chan can hear his heartbeat hammering against his ribs, can feel his chest rise and fall with each breath. There’s something here, something important in the making and Chan remains still, quiet, waiting it out.

“Dino,” Vernon eventually says, voice barely above a whisper, “Chan, I love you. I have for along time. I’m sorry.”

And his arms tighten around Chan as if he feared he would flee, and it’s this that does it, brings out all the feelings buried deep under Chan’s beating heart, the yearning and the loneliness and the hope and the love, a love so deep it almost scares him, one he’d never faced, one he’d buried deeper than the ground because it was better than watch it wither. Chan opens his eyes, looking up at this face he knows well, one he could trace in the dark and he watches the lovely eyes, the adored lips, watches Vernon’s breath hitch and his jaw tense and it’s fear in his face but it’s fine, Chan wants to tell him, I love you too, I always did, I told the magic it could take me instead, that I would go willingly if it was for you, but it didn’t, it let me stay, and I love you, I love you too.

But Chan never learned how to say these words and they remain stuck in his throat, fluttering there uselessly until the day where maybe he’ll be able to speak them. There’s other ways, though, there’s other ways to soothe the worry, to chase the fear from the beloved eyes and Chan shifts, out of Vernon’s arms who lets him go without a struggle and Chan leans over him, a smile on his lips, brushing the hair off his brow.

“What are you doing?” Vernon asks hesitantly, a small, confused smile tugging at his lips.

“I’m showing you,” Chan says and Vernon laughs then, a sharp laugh turning to giggles when Chan kisses his cheek, kisses his temple and the bump of his cheekbone and Chan knows Vernon understands then, knows he can feel the meaning behind each of his gestures; there’s warm hands on his back bringing him closer and when Chan is sure there is no more fear, no more worries tugging at Vernon’s mind he dips his head and kisses him on the lips, softly; and he didn’t think he could love someone so much, a warm wave pulling him under, and he didn’t think someone could love him the same, soft hands on the back of his neck and a sharp intake of breath, things falling into place.

“I should have told you sooner,” Vernon says, later, when they lay quietly side by side, watching the sky through the window, a silvery moonlight painting shadows on the walls. Chan doesn’t know what he’s referring to, the magic or their feelings or everything but it doesn’t matter, not anymore when his chest is full of light.

“It’s okay,” he says, linking their hands together. “It’s enough to know now.”

“You’re not mad I didn’t tell you.”

This again, this cautiousness, tentative words and worried glances and Chan turns to Vernon, catching his eyes.

“No, I’m not,” he says, “I understand why you did it. And I’m not… I’m not telling you everything that’s going on with me, either.”

“I know, though, Dino. And I know why you don’t want to tell me,” Vernon says, and the words seem to hurt him on the way out, a barely-there wince, a glance towards the window.

“I’m gonna change everything,” Chan says then and it’s as he says it that he knows it is true, that he knows he’s going to do it, the decision made in half a second.

“I’m gonna leave and I’ll never go back ever again.”

“Where will you go?” Vernon asks, adding immediately, “you can stay here, my parents won’t mind, I think they sort of guessed–”

“No,” Chan interrupts, gently, “I can’t be relying on you for this, I did it all my life.”

“But I don’t mind.”

“I know you don’t. But I’m gonna – I can get a proper job now, or soon anyway, and I’ll get my own place, and–”

“Where will you go in the meantime? You gotta sleep somewhere.”

It comes back to him then, evening light and warm shadows, a dreamless slumber and the soothed emptiness that followed. It tells him exactly where he needs to go, and he knows too that Vernon told the truth, that something in this place likes him. And he remembers Minghao’s cold fury when they’d shown up with matching black eyes, he remembers Jeonghan’s soft words when he’d shown him the tarot cards, slowly, patiently; and he remembers Joshua’s laugh over video games and the inane questions they’d ask him and yeah, maybe he can try to belong there, if for a little while; maybe he already does.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he says then, burrowing closer to Vernon, “we have help now.”

He has help, but Chan is still alone when he leaves his home.

  
  


**3** **.**

Chan steps into the shop right before closing time, readjusting the strap of the duffel bag digging into his shoulder. He has a whole speech planned, two, actually, depending of whether Jeonghan or Minghao is manning the counter. But it’s neither; there’s a tall guy instead, one he’s never seen before, dark hair falling in curls over his forehead, square jaw and high cheekbones and he’d be intimidating if he wasn’t slouching forward, listlessly turning the pages of a small book opened before him. He looks up when the door closes behind Chan with the jingle of the bell, doesn’t have the time to supply the usual customer welcome before he’s interrupted.

“Who the heck are you?” Chan asks, inching his bag up his shoulder once again; he packed too much, the bag way too heavy and he didn’t think there was so much he wanted to bring with him. It was nice, in a way – not everything had been bad, not everything had been worth forgetting.

“Could ask you the same thing,” the guy answers, a little miffed, dark eyes alighting on Chan’s face and there’s something swirling there, something that tells Chan there’s more to him than meet the eye.

“Is Minghao here?”

“Maybe,” the guy says, tilting his head as he considers him and his gaze is slightly unsettling, too intense, as if he could see what laid below Chan’s skin. “What happened to your face?” he continues, closing the book before him, setting his chin on his palm as if he was settling in for a story.

“Stuff happened,” Chan says, giving up on the bag and letting it fall to the floor with a dull thud. The guy doesn’t even blink, his stare staying on Chan’s wrecked face and it seems that he knows, then, eyebrows furrowing and he’s about to say something when a familiar voice spills into the room, Minghao bursting through the curtains, clutching to his chest an array of strange objects; a big fan, what seems like sheathed daggers, a grape of bells that tingle with each of his step and swathes of cloths, red and white, folded in a messy bundle.

“Wonwoo, I found them, I’m pretty sure they’re the real deal but–” he interrupts himself as he spots Chan, stares at him with his mouth slightly agape.

“What the fuck happened to you?” he asks, much more forcefully than the stranger had and Chan winces, ready to spin a lie but somehow the dark glow in Minghao’s eyes tells him it won’t work this time, and maybe he’s tired of lying, maybe he wants someone to know, just this once.

“I got into a fight with my dad,” he says, and that’s not the whole truth either, so he tries again. “Or, like, my dad beat me up. He, well, he does that sometimes.”

There’s a stunned silence and strangely Chan feels okay, despite the throb in his jaw, the pain in his ribs and the bruise he can feel bloom under his left eye. He said it, and nothing came crashing down, and he doesn’t feel ashamed, he doesn’t feel pathetic, he doesn’t feel anything besides the lightness in his chest. He’s looking at the stranger next to Minghao who stares back steadily and there’s something warm there in his dark eyes, something comforting, something that tells him he did well.

A clatter makes Chan snap his gaze back to Minghao, who dropped his paraphernalia on the counter without a care, face white with fury, something fierce in his gaze Chan had yet to see.

“I’m gonna kill the bastard,” he seethes, going around the counter before the stranger shoots out an arm to stop him, gripping his wrist.

“No murder,” he says simply and Minghao looks back, face pinched.

“You know I could make it seem like an accident. I bet I’d be good at it.”

“Joshua’s the one with murder experience and look where it got him.”

“In Jeonghan’s pants?”

“Okay, before that.”

“Joshua killed someone?” Chan asks then, and they both stare at him with wide eyes – Chan has the distinct impression they forgot he was there for half a second.

“No,” Minghao says, the stranger’s hand falling from his wrist. “No, he didn’t. We’re just joking.”

“Right,” Chan says, not believing a word but it doesn’t seem to matter at that time; he only thinks of Minghao’s rage, the righteous fury that rose on his behalf and warmth rises like smoke in his chest as he stares at him, at his disheveled hair, at the savage curve of his bones, his dark eyes and the fierce loyalty he finds there.

“What about a curse?” the stranger suggests then, bringing their attention back to him.

“Oh, I like that,” Minghao says, the light back in his face. He steps back behind the counter, already swapping ideas with the man and Chan watches their heads bent together, listens to the rapid-fire rhythm of their voices and a slow smile spreads to his lips; they fit, just as Joshua and Jeonghan fit together, and somehow he’s been included in that circle, in the fierce devotion to be found there.

“It’s fine,” he says, taking a step forward, rising his voice so they can hear him over their own chatter, “it’s fine, I don’t need you to do anything. I’m not going back there anyway.”

“Of course you’re not,” Minghao says sharply, still glowering, the man next to him hiding a smile behind his hand. “What did you plan on doing?”

“I thought–” Chan interrupts himself, his carefully laid speech all but forgotten, and the man behind the counter watches him with an amused grin; somehow this spurs him on, and he trips over his next words, barely looking at Minghao. “I thought you wouldn’t mind letting me stay here for a bit, until I find a job, and then I could get a room for myself and get out of everyone’s hair. School is over in like, barely a month, I don’t really have to go anyway and then I can just… You know.”

Minghao remains silent, until the guy tugs at his sleeve, fake-worry all over his face.

“Hao, Hao love, I’m not ready for kids,” he says, “I didn’t think we would be adopting so soon.”

“Shut the hell up, Wonwoo,” Minghao snaps, swatting away the man’s hand who laugh. He turns back to look at Chan, whose shoulders have somehow come up to his ears.

“You can stay,” Minghao says, trying to school his voice in something gentle but he still sounds angry, “and you go to school. And we will help you find work, if that’s what you want.”

“The library’s couch is a pull-out,” the man, Wonwoo, helpfully supplies, “can you believe I had to sleep on a couch for a full week here because everyone was too busy being depressed to tell me I could just turn it into a fucking bed?”

He gets elbowed again and Chan laughs, something that tastes like relief and he’s exhausted suddenly; the adrenaline and anxiety that held him up fading as he’s finally there, finally safe. He sags on himself, and maybe the colour drains from his face or maybe it’s something in his eyes, but suddenly Minghao is right there in his space, an arm around his shoulders, and Wonwoo’s skirting the counter to join them, smile eaten up by worry.

“When’s the last time you ate?” Minghao is asking, stirring him towards the kitchen, “you must be tired, yeah? We’re gonna make you something to eat and then–” he keeps talking, soft voice curling around words Chan’s fuzzy brain doesn’t quite catch but it’s alright, soon he’s seated in a chair with a full plate in front of him and it’s nice and warm, and he stops thinking for a bit, watching as Minghao fleets around the kitchen, talking with Wonwoo and their voices wound around him like a cloak, already familiar, already dear; he’s not afraid anymore, nothing to hide that they don’t already know and there’s freedom in letting go, there’s power in vulnerability – he can just be, here and now, be whatever he is.

The library feels the same as the last time he had seen it; the soft evening light, the high ceiling, the too-deep shadows in the corners. Chan steps in gingerly, clutching to his chest the change of clothes he’d extricated from the mess inside his duffel bag. The couch had been pulled out into a bed, fresh linen smelling faintly of lavender put upon the mattress and Chan can picture Minghao setting it up while he himself was in the shower. He can picture Minghao’s face set in a frown as he thought back on what had happened, remnants of his earlier rage clinging to his mind. It had felt good, Chan realizes then, it had felt good to see him so angry over something that had happened to him, over something that had hurt him, that had hurt him so much for so long. Maybe Vernon had been right. _T_ _hey like you,_ he’d said, _they do_ , and Minghao must have, at least, for something so fiery to break out.

Chan turns off the light, not bothering to close the curtains over the window, letting the moonlight bask the room in silver and he pads to the bed, laying there with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, at the moving shadows he finds there. He’s sore, all over, yet just like last time he feels soothed, subdued, and he knows now that something is truly dwelling there, something he chooses to believe is benevolent, something that knows about the fear and the sorrow and that won’t let it in, not anymore, not ever. He closes his eyes, letting this same warm emptiness seep into his being and there’s no need to stay alert for tell-tale sounds, no need for fretful sleep and anxious dreams. He lets himself sink into the mattress, amongst the smell of lavender and something else, something deeper, older, something that belongs to the house itself. He doesn’t see the shadows creeping out of the corners, curling on the covers like watchful guardians, whispering unknown words that thread into his dreams, pulling him into a deep slumber, one where he is safe, one where he is loved.

A few doors down, Minghao lets himself fall back on his own bed, listening to the sounds of Wonwoo changing clothes by the dresser; rustles of cotton on bare skin and a soft sigh when Wonwoo stretches.

“Are you alright?” Wonwoo asks him when he’s done, sitting on the edge of the bed, threading a hand in Minghao’s hair who closes his eyes, letting out a sigh of his own.

“I don’t know,” he answers, “do you think he’ll be fine?”

“He will, now,” Wonwoo says and Minghao believes him. He turns on his side, landing a hand on Wonwoo’s thigh who keeps petting at his hair, drawing tickling patterns on his cheek with a stray strand.

“I always though…” Minghao starts, and the soft silence tells him Wonwoo is listening, the rhythm of his hand unchanged. “I always envied people who had a family. Like an idiot I never stopped to think it could be the worst thing in your life.”

Minghao shifts again, turning on his back to look at Wonwoo, at the sad downturn of his mouth and the weariness in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he adds, “it wasn’t easy for you, either. I feel like I got off lightly now.”

Wonwoo laughs then, something short-lived, and he bends to kiss Minghao on the lips, slowly, deliberately, letting him know there is no resentment, no bitterness.

“You made your own,” he says when they part, “you made your own and Chan will too, you’re probably already a part of it. It doesn’t mean any less. It should mean more; people you chose to love, people you chose to stick by.”

“I love you,” Minghao says then and Wonwoo smiles, trailing warm fingers over Minghao’s features.

“I know,” he says, “I do too.”

“I left all the shaman shit downstairs,” Minghao blurts out, a bit out of the blue, the thought hitting him.

“It’s okay.”

“You were really excited about it.”

“I’m really excited about you too.”

“Gross.”

“You like it.”

“Yeah,” Minghao says, raising his hands to Wonwoo’s nape and he pulls him down to himself, kissing him again, hands tangled in his dark hair and he’s right, he is, Minghao made his own, one he loves fiercely, one he’ll shelter with all he has.

  
  


**4** **.**

Vernon talks and Chan listens. They’re sitting in the library, cross-legged on the pull-out bed amongst the messy sheets Chan hadn’t bothered tidying up. It feels like when they were kids, whispering to each other under a blanket made up like a fort, swapping stories and giggling like mad until Vernon’s mum would show up, poking her head through the crack in the door, telling them it was time to quiet down and she’d had a kiss for each of them. Chan is grateful for her. Chan is grateful for everything Vernon. And so Vernon talks, and Chan listens.

It isn’t so different from the stories they’d tell as kids, except that now it’s real. Vernon tells Chan about the dreams and the tree and the person everyone believes is stuck there. He tells Chan about the shift and how it feels, he tells Chan about the little scars and each morsel of soul melting into his. He tells Chan about the secret outings at night, about coming home with the chill of night on his skin and watching him sleep, watching him in the dark and knowing all that was wrong, yet there was no words to talk about it. About the helplessness and the fear and how hard he’d loved him, even then, even when they were just idiot little kids and he didn’t even know what love was, really, beyond the soft kisses of his mum and the warm hugs of his dad. Chan listens and Chan threads his fingers between Vernon’s own and they shift closer together, heads bent towards one another and it feels good and light and like something falling into place.

And then it’s Chan’s turn to talk, and Vernon’s to listen. Chan’s story is darker that Vernon’s had been, and he tells it in quiet whispers, too many pauses and too many unfinished sentences. But Vernon listens and Vernon sits close and Vernon keeps Chan’s hands in his and kisses him when he needs it and it’s nothing that he didn’t already know but it feels different to hear it in words, painfully weak words that don’t translate the pain and the fear and the resilience. He’d seen it in Chan’s eyes so many times though, he had seen it spelled on his skin and so he knows the depths of it, and he lets Chan lay against him when it gets too much, and they stay there, quiet and warm under the soft light of early morning and it feels like a new beginning.

They only move when they hear a loud guffaw from downstairs and it’s Minghao and he isn’t usually that loud; they stare at each other for a split second, scrambling off the bed in an unspoken agreement. They race each other in the corridor, giggling like idiots because it’s that kind of morning, and they skid to a halt at the kitchen door, four pair of eyes falling on them.

“Good morning,” Jeonghan says from his place at the kitchen table. He’s holding a mug of tea close to his chest; there’s no room on the table for him to put it down. It’s covered in the objects Chan remembers from the night before. It seems so far away to him now he has a bit of trouble fitting everything back together. There’s the fan, opened this time, white and delicate. There’s the two knives, unsheathed, wide flat blades sharp and glittering although they’re in shadows, the tiny bells, too, held together with a red ribbon, and a swath of white papers Chan doesn’t know the use of.

“Slept well?” Minghao asks and Chan’s gaze snaps to him as he nods, a little speechless. Minghao’s helping Wonwoo dress in what must be the folded clothes he’d held against his chest. It’s a hanbok, and the way they handle it, Wonwoo barely moving, Minghao’s hands slow and careful, tells Chan it must be old, really old. But it’s still beautiful; the inner robe is of a deep blue, covering Wonwoo’s feet, and the layers of the outer robes, blindingly white despite the age of the cloth, hang off his frame imposingly, tumbling to the ground from the belt resting high on his chest, a large piece of red cloth tied in a half-knot at the front. Over his shoulders and down the front of the outer-robes’ opening the same red cloth hangs, geometric seals embroidered onto it in gold thread.

Minghao gives one of the wide sleeves a last tug, stepping back to take it all in. Wonwoo doesn’t seem like the same person, Chan thinks in passing; there is nothing of the man slouched over the counter with an amused glint in his eyes in the one that stands before them, tall and commanding.

“How does it feel?” Minghao asks him in a soft voice and Chan has the distinct feeling he is not asking about the fitting.

“Good,” Wonwoo answers, a hint of awe in his voice as he raises a hand, swiping the room in a slow, graceful gesture, palm up towards the ceiling. “It feels good,” he repeats, closing his eyes. Chan spares a glance at Minghao then, and his face is such as he’s never seen it; mouth slightly parted, eyes bright, the ghost of a smile dancing on his lips and Chan feels bashful, suddenly, as if he wasn’t supposed to have seen it, as if this expression wasn’t for him at all, a secret he’d stumble upon.

“Do you want the knives?” Minghao asks then, voice soft and Wonwoo shakes his head.

“Give me the fan,” he says, extending his hand and it’s Joshua who gives it to him, sitting opposite Jeonghan on the other side of the table.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says, once he has it in hand, performing another one of his swiping gesture and Chan is pretty sure he didn’t imagine the ripple going through the room. “This is perfect. Do you know who it belonged to?”

“No,” Minghao shakes his head, sitting back down at the table, grabbing at an abandoned mug teetering on the edge. “I don’t even remember when I bought it. Or where.”

Wonwoo hums thoughtfully under his breath, looking down at himself before snapping the fan closed, stepping up to the table to let it rest amongst the objects there.

“It’s the real deal alright. The person it belonged to must have been much more powerful than me.” Wonwoo says, still thoughtful, gaze lost. “I might show it to my mum,” he adds after a silent beat, carefully fitting his tall frame into the chair next to Minghao who nods at him, thoughtlessly brushing a stray strand of hair off Wonwoo’s brow and it’s this gesture, more than anything else, that speaks of the closeness between them. Chan suddenly understands the exact nature of their relationship and he feels a bit idiotic for not having it caught sooner, but he guesses he had other things on his mind then.

“Do you kids want breakfast?” Joshua asks, everyone turning to them as if they’d just remembered they were here, still awkwardly standing at the threshold.

“I guess we could eat,” Chan says, stepping fully into the room, grabbing a chair for himself as Minghao cleans the mess off the table. Vernon follows, settling beside him, and he stares at Wonwoo with something like awe in his face.

“You’re a shaman,” he says and Wonwoo turns to him with an amused smile on his lips. The man he’d first met is back, Chan thinks, all solemnity falling from him with a simple quirk of his lips.

“What gave it away?” Wonwoo asks and Vernon blushes and Chan knows it’s his turn now, jumping in the conversation to shelter Vernon, who’d always been more comfortable watching from the sidelines.

“So you can talk to spirits and shit?” he asks loudly, grabbing the plate of toasts Joshua hands him. He can feel Vernon relax next to him and pushes the plate his way as he stuffs a whole toast into his mouth, deflecting the attention to himself.

“I guess it’s one way to put it,” Wonwoo says, dark eyes falling on Chan who smiles, mouth full of toast.

“Cool,” he says, “are you talking to whoever's in the tree?” he asks then, grabbing at the pot of jam near Jeonghan’s elbow. He only realizes how quiet everyone’s fallen when he looks up as he finishes slathering another toast.

“What?” he asks around a mouthful. “What did I say?”

“You,” Wonwoo croaks, shutting up to clear his throat. “You, well. That’s an idea, I guess,” he says, neither a question nor a statement, turning to look at Joshua with an eyebrow raised.

“Could–” Joshua starts, interrupting himself to glance at Jeonghan, finding there whatever approval he needs as he continues, “could you even do that?”

“I guess?” Wonwoo says, “I mean, it’s a tree spirit, I could probably… Yeah, I think I could reach it. But, like, what would even be the point? You guys seemed pretty alright talking to him in dreams.”

“It’s different,” Joshua says, leaning over the table, excitement seeping into his voice and Chan wonders if he should remind them that he’s here, that he’s probably not supposed to hear any of this, but instead he bites into his toast and keeps quiet.

“In the dreams the spirit controls everything. It shows us what it wants. If we can bring it here, though. If we can bring it here he’ll have to answer us.”

“What do we even want to ask?” Jeonghan says then, voice barely above a whisper and they all turn to him; it feels conspirational, like they’re plotting something dangerous and a childish giddiness rises in Chan’s stomach. He glances at Vernon, trying to quell the smile he feels growing on his lips and Vernon looks back at him with the same excitement in his eyes. They hunch forward over the table, everyone huddling closer together as if they’d had to keep away from listening ears.

“Who he is, for starters, how did he became that way,” Minghao says, voice barely above a whisper.

“Does he want to get out,” Joshua says then, and a heavy quiet follows his words. There’s a story there, it’s in the faces of everyone around them, in the swirl of sadness in their gazes but Chan doesn’t ask. He turns to Vernon instead, who looks at him helplessly; he doesn’t know either, and Chan files it away with the rest of the mysteries hanging around these people. Maybe he’ll be worth telling one day, maybe they’ll let him know, when they trust him enough.

“Okay,” Wonwoo says then, pushing away from the table. “Okay, I can try. But I can’t promise anything.”

“That’s fine,” Joshua says, “what will you need?”

“Too many things we don’t have,” Wonwoo says, standing up, turning to Minghao. “Which room can I use?” he asks and Minghao stands up in turn, already walking towards the corridor.

“The library should do,” he says, “if you don’t mind, Chan,” he adds as an afterthought, and Chan is so startled to be asked permission, as if the library had been written off limits since he’d made it his own, that he barely answer intelligibly, Minghao nodding at him when he stammers out a _yeah, of course._

The preparations take hours. Somehow Chan thought they would have waited, a couple days, at least, prepared everything carefully and with the required decorum. Instead him and Vernon get send down to the supermarket to retrieve enough pears, oranges and rice cakes to last them a lifetime. They get soju bottles too, the good kind, and maybe it’s the bruise on his face that makes Chan look older but the cashier doesn’t even lift an eyebrow as he rings their purchases.

When they get back Jeonghan sends them up to the library and they step gingerly inside, clutching their grocery bags to themselves. The bed has been pulled back into a couch, and the coffee table is settled near the window, before a painted screen Chan had yet to see. On the low table that officiates as an altar, Minghao has them put the fruits in pretty bowls and the bottles of alcohol at each ends. Joshua is busy hanging garlands of coloured paper from the shelves, red, blue and yellow. Wonwoo is nowhere to be seen. Minghao shoos them when he comes to kneel by the table, putting up candles and Jeonghan joins him then, a small incense burner in his hands, one he must have retrieved from his own room.

It’s then that Wonwoo enters, and once again Chan is struck by how different he looks. He’s still wearing the old hanbok, clutching a swath of white paper to his chest with one hand, holding the big fan in the other. He seems older, somehow, older and wiser and when he kneels by the altar to survey the preparations Chan truly believes him capable of anything. Vernon and him have scooted back, kneeling together near the far wall and again Chan is seized by the impression that he shouldn’t be here, that this isn’t for him to witness. Yet no one seems to mind him, and when Wonwoo gets up, surveying the room one last time, his gaze lingers on him and he smiles, something soft and thoughtful.

“Alright,” he says then, “I think we’re as ready as we’ll ever be.”

There’s murmured assents, Jeonghan, Joshua and Minghao kneeling away from the table, leaving a sizeable space for Wonwoo to make his own. Vernon and Chan exchange a glance, shifting to kneel right behind them and they watch as Wonwoo paces the empty floor, checking everything one last time, smoothing down the folds of his hanbok.

“It might not work,” he says, “I should have music, and this isn’t really an altar, and…” he interrupts himself, taking a deep breath, “but maybe it will work, and if it does, I don’t really know what will happen.”

He’s looking at Minghao then, and whatever he finds in his face seems to reassure him; he nods once, firmly, and turns to kneel before their makeshift altar, lighting the incense as he says a prayer Chan doesn’t understand. The shadows seem to grow when he lights the candles, as if the light outside had dimmed and the room falls quiet, almost too much so; it feels cut out from the rest of the house, isolated. Chan shifts, uneasy, but no one else seems to have noticed, gazes riveted to Wonwoo as he stands, grabbing a handful of the white papers and lighting them on fire. He scatters the ashes over them, shaking the burning sheets in front of his face, and lets the remains fall to the floor. He steps to the middle of the room then, tall and straight, and there’s a pause, all the air in the room wrapping tightly around him. And then, Wonwoo takes a breath, and starts jumping lightly on his feet.

He has the closed white fan in one hand and the small, round bells in the other; they chime every time he moves. It’s a slow dance, his face taut, his body rigid. He does not drift from his spot in the middle of the room, his feet thumping lightly on the floor. His eyes are closed, lips slightly parted; Chan’s chest hurts then, and he realizes he’s stopped breathing. He lets out a slow exhale, wipes his clammy hands on his thighs and glances at Vernon’s profile next to him. Quiet, barely breathing, eyes riveted to the shaman.

The sound of the bells grow quicker and louder, just as the shadows in the room seem to grow, the light outside dimming, barely cresting the painted screen at the window and Wonwoo’s movements speed up, the sound of his breath ragged; he opens the white fan in a quick gesture, opening his arms in hurried swipes mirroring the graceful ones of that morning in the kitchen, seemingly so faraway now. His body convulses on a rhythm only he can hear; all sound has died except for the rhythmic tapping of his socked feet and the chimes of the bell. The dimness swells then, like a curious beast nosing at the moving boundaries of the candlelight.

A shiver runs through Chan and he grabs at Vernon’s hand who holds on to him tightly, nervousness thrumming on his skin. Wonwoo must feel it, the shift in the atmosphere, the oppressiveness of encroaching dark; his dancing becomes more pressing and from his parted lips come distorted words, like a prayer gone wrong, in a language Chan isn’t sure he quite understands. Wonwoo’s folding over himself before standing up straight, swaying and turning, always jumping, one foot then the other. There’s a tightness in Chan’s chest, pressing against his ribs as if all air had left the room. It’s grown colder and Vernon holds his hand tighter, face taut, eyes following Wonwoo’s every move, the broken words coming out of his mouth seemingly calling for something. There’s a ragged breath, and Chan feels it, then, something slithering like an eel. The candlelight shivers.

Something has come into the room with them.

The bell sounds abruptly stop, chiming one last time when Wonwoo falls to his knees. The fan tumbles out of his open hand and he seems lifeless, head lolling against his chest. There’s no sounds, no breaths. From all sides the darkness presses on, sweeping into the room when all but one candle go out. Chan’s eyes dart from Wonwoo’s slumped form to Vernon’s cold hand encasing his own. He wants to move, but his body is made of lead, the darkness burying him under too much weight. It’s Minghao who moves first, dragging himself to Wonwoo’s side, lifting a hesitant hand to touch him and as he does a violent shiver racks the shaman’s body, a sharp wail piercing their ears.

Minghao falls back, his body hitting the floor with a thump and Wonwoo’s face snaps to him at the noise but his eyes are milky white.

“Where am I?” Wonwoo asks, flailing to get at Minghao who scrambles back and panic seizes through the room; the voice he used isn’t his, the hands grasping at Minghao out of the wide sleeves aren’t either. Broken nails, fingers covered in scratches and clotted blood as if he had been clawing at dirt. The smell of decay hangs heavy in the air, something earthy, telling of rotten leaves and the carcasses of small creatures. Wonwoo’s body moves in jerks, shifting, his hands clenching convulsively. He slumps over himself before a hand reaches out, scratching at the floorboards, slowly moving towards Minghao who seems frozen, huge eyes riveted to the broken figure slowly crawling towards him.

“What have you done,” Wonwoo says in that grating voice that isn’t his, “what have you done?”

Joshua reaches Minghao before the creature does. He grabs him by the shoulders, dragging him backwards to the back of the room, and the movement seems to jerk Minghao out of his trance. He straightens in Joshua’s grip, grabs at his wrist, knuckle-white, and forces his eyes back on Wonwoo’s distorted face.

“Who are you?” he asks, voice shaking, “what happened to you?”

The body stops, and all is silent. There’s a soft, pained whine and it moves again, trying to sit upright. But the movements are all wrong, jerks and twitches, face contorting in a rictus before the voice is heard again. The lips don’t seem to move in accordance with the words and the discrepancy is so unsettling Chan drops his eyes from the tortured face to the mangled hands in Wonwoo’s lap.

“Who am I? Who am I… I’ve been here so long. All is fading.”

“Where are you?”

“You know,” the voice says, blind eyes finding Minghao’s face, “you all know.”

“The tree,” Jeonghan says then, “and the desert of bones.”

“I was buried there once,” the voice says, raw and grating and Chan’s whole body shivers; the hands, the wrecked hands he’s staring at, blood and dirt and broken nails. He wasn’t dead, he realizes, his grip tightening on Vernon’s perfect hand, he wasn’t dead when he’d been buried.

“Why? Why were you buried?” Minghao asks and Wonwoo’s head jerks back towards him at a broken angle, mouth opening on black teeth.

“There was someone else. There was someone else I know their face I know it.”

“Who was it?” Jeonghan asks, voice barely above a whisper and the creature doesn’t tear its gaze from Minghao when it answers.

“Let it stop,” it says, voice broken, “why won’t you let it stop? There is nothing worth knowing.”

“But there is,” Joshua says, and he’s the only one who sounds unafraid. “You were someone, someday. And you helped us.”

There a ragged breath, the creature falling back onto itself, broken spine and broken mind.

“No,” it says, “no, it hurts. I don’t want to be here. Let me go. Let me go, let me go!” and the voice rises in screams as it repeats the words over and over again, piercing wails that have Chan covering his ears, a sob stuck in his chest at the naked pain he’s witnessing and he’s not afraid anymore, he’s not, he just wants it to end, he just wants this broken creature to go back the way it came but Wonwoo’s eyes are white and his hands bloody and he keeps screaming. Joshua yells something then, something in a grating tongue Chan doesn’t understand, he yells it above the wails as he lets go of Minghao, hands coming together in an intricate gesture and suddenly, the noise stops.

The creature falls quiet but it’s not a creature anymore, it’s Wonwoo, Wonwoo white as death, falling on a heap in the floor and Minghao shoots out of Joshua’s arms, rushing to his side; he frames his face in his hands and there’s a panicked sob in his voice as he cradles him to his chest, rocking back and forth as if he held a child and amidst the stunned silence Chan is sure they lost him, that the creature took him with it and he cannot breath, he cannot breath anymore. But there’s a choked sob then, one that does not come from Minghao, and a trembling hand that reaches out to Minghao’s wrist and Wonwoo is opening his eyes, his own dark eyes, searching Minghao’s face and the way Minghao says his name tears a hole in Chan’s chest; he thought they’d lost him, too, he’d thought they did.

“You’re crushing me,” Wonwoo says weakly and the sound that comes from Minghao is halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“Never do something like that ever again,” Minghao says against Wonwoo’s hair, “what the hell was that, Wonwoo, I thought you’d die, I though you’d die for sure.”

Jeonghan shifts then, lightly touching Minghao on the shoulder and it seems that it’s enough for him to relax, his grip lessening on Wonwoo who struggles to sit up, leaning against Minghao’s chest.

“I feel like I got trampled by a heard of bison,” he says and there’s this sound from Minghao again, the one that breaks Chan’s heart.

“Were you conscious?” Joshua asks from his place near the wall.

“No,” Wonwoo says, shaking his head before the gesture makes him wince. “I don’t know where I was, but it sure the hell wasn’t here.”

“What did it say to you guys?” Wonwoo continues when no one says anything. “You all look like you seen a ghost.”

“I think we did,” Joshua says then, “I think you called the part of him that’s still human.”

“It wasn’t pretty,” Chan says then, surprising even himself and Wonwoo’s gaze falls on him, a weak smile on his lips.

“You mean even though he had all this to work with,” Wonwoo says, vaguely gesturing to himself, “he still looked like shit?”

Chan nods vigorously and something like a laugh escapes Wonwoo’s throat, ending on a cough.

“Did we learn anything?” he asks when he manages to find his voice again.

“Not really,” Minghao says softly, still gazing at Wonwoo as if he’d disappear any second.

“We know how he died,” Chan says then, all eyes turning to him.

“We do?” Jeonghan asks, encouraging, and Chan looks to him when he answers.

“The hands,” he says, raising his own, “you didn’t notice the hands?”

“What about them?”

“They were all dirty. With actual dirt, I mean. The nails were broken off. He said he’d been buried.”

“You think he’s been buried alive,” Jeonghan says slowly, and Chan hears an intake of breath right next to him, Vernon, looking too pale in the dim light. He finds his hand before answering, threading his fingers into his.

“Yeah,” Chan nods, “yeah, I do.”

A heavy silence follow his words, the men exchanging glances, something indecipherable passing between them.

“What you said,” Minghao says then, turning to Joshua, “what you said once, about how they used to bury witches in elm trees. Did they, did they kill them beforehand?”

Joshua remains silent, staring at Minghao, at Wonwoo ashen in his arms, at Jeonghan next to him, at Chan and Vernon leaning into each other, all staring back. _You’d be all dead,_ his gaze seems to say, _you’d be all dead in the ground_.

“Not always,” he offers instead, and a collective shiver goes through them all.

“We need to find out what happened,” Minghao says, the light back in his eyes. “We owe him that.”

Chan doesn’t ask why they owe him. It’s part of that story, he knows, the one that had blanketed them all with a deep grief he saw in passing, sometimes, in the way Jeonghan looked at Joshua, in Minghao’s fierce protectiveness, in Joshua’s old, too old eyes. It was in the shadows of the house and the gentleness of them; they knew what loss was, loss and loneliness. And he thinks back to the broken shape dragging itself over the floor, the battered bones and broken nails. The worst of it hadn’t been the primal fear that had risen from the depths of his guts. It had been the agony, the agony clinging to the creature’s wretched body like a disease, spelled on its broken skin, in the bend of its bones and the cracks in its voice. It had dug a hole in Chan’s side, a hole it filled with a savage sorrow, something like metal in his jaw, the taste dark on his tongue.

“What do we do now?” Vernon asks suddenly, voice quiet, barely daring to break the heavy silence that had fallen upon them.

“We find a way,” Minghao shrugs, hugging Wonwoo more tightly to himself, “we always do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wonwoo's hanbok is based off [this one](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/8f/13/68/8f136804bf3e999d0e61c3aade71ee31.jpg?fbclid=IwAR2962A0hPtnAvj035cSKoHkvpuD-pcYPQzIpbLGqgXb3_zIMc7V1Jt-kzU).


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all your support on this fic, and the series as a whole. I appreciate all your comments so much, and I hope this last entry will meet your expectations! Thank you so much for reading up until then.

**1.**

Wonwoo sleeps for the whole night and the whole day after that. Jeonghan watches Minghao flutter in and out of the bedroom, restless and edgy, features drawn tight and he remembers another time when Wonwoo wouldn’t wake, stuck between this world and the next, trapped within his own mind and Minghao had done all that he could to bring him back, had gone to find him in his death-like sleep even though he hadn’t loved him yet. Maybe he’d known, though, maybe he’d already known what this person would become for him, something within him reaching out to its reflection in Wonwoo’s wrecked mind.

It feels like a lifetime ago yet still so close, the remnants of those days of grief and terror carved deep in their bones and Jeonghan wonders if they’ll ever feel at peace again, or if this dread will always lay dormant at the back of their minds. They’d come so close to lose everything, the wounds still raw and bleeding. And so he doesn’t say anything when Minghao carves yet another rune in his bedpost, doesn’t say anything when he burns sage and has Joshua stand at the foot of the bed, singing a litany in that guttural tongue of theirs.

Jeonghan could tell him this is nothing like it has been. That Wonwoo just looks tired, the normal kind of tired and not the crippling exhaustion that was burning him to ashes, the first time they saw him. He could tell him that when he touches him Wonwoo’s dreams feel pleasant, no traces left of that bleak darkness that had left him feeling like he’d eaten a corpse, breath choked out of him. He could tell him that Wonwoo looks peaceful like this, curled up on his side like a child, hair disheveled, that his face looks nothing like the death-mask he’d worn that first time, lying on his back where they had left him, a recumbent for a grave of ruin and hatred.

But Jeonghan knows Minghao won’t hear and so he keeps quiet, sitting by the side of the bed, spinning shadows to hold vigil over Wonwoo’s slumber. Maybe one day this worry will fade, he thinks, maybe one day they’ll be able to look at each others without this undercurrent of anguish coursing through them, through their veins and the house itself; the one telling them how close they had come to lose one another, how easy it would have been. So Jeonghan watches Wonwoo in Minghao’s stead when the latter cannot stay standing anymore, and he brushes hair out of Wonwoo’s eyes and he lights another baton of incense when the last one burns itself to ashes.

There’s footsteps, then, quiet and hesitant, stopping at the threshold and when Jeonghan turns Chan is there, wide eyes staring at him from his wrecked face. In the commotion Jeonghan had forgotten about the kid and guilt wakes in his chest; there had been so much in so little time. He smiles at him, nods to make him know it’s okay. Chan steps gingerly into the room, letting his weight fall in the desk chair, glancing at Wonwoo’s sleeping face.

“Is he gonna be okay?” he asks, gaze fleeting to Jeonghan.

“Yes,” Jeonghan answers, “it just took a lot out of him. He’s not hurt, nothing like that. Just tired.”

“Okay,” Chan says, some of the tension leaving his shoulders and it’s strange, Jeonghan realizes then, it’s strange to see him like this, without his usual swagger, without any of the sharp wits he wields like a weapon to keep people at bay. He looks fragile, somehow, frayed at the edges, huge eyes trained on Wonwoo’s face. Chan is watching him breath, Jeonghan realizes, Chan is watching him breath to make sure.

“Are you alright?” Jeonghan asks him, averting his gaze, looking at Wonwoo’s hand wrapped in the sheets. “You’ve had a tough couple days, to say the least.”

Chan remains quiet for a while and when Jeonghan looks up again the veneer is back in place, a boyish smile plastered on his face, eyes crinkling at the corner.

“I’m okay, considering I actually saw a real ghost for real,” he says, stretching his arms above his head and this, too, is a deflection, the gesture meant to keep wandering eyes away from his face as he spins his lie. Jeonghan hadn’t noticed at first, how restless the kid always was, wild hand gestures and bouncing legs and then it was all that he could see; a turmoil of words and limbs and you could never stare at the same place for too long.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Jeonghan says slowly, looking back at Wonwoo and maybe if he doesn’t look at him Chan won’t need to perform.

“I wasn’t scared,” Chan says hastily as if he needed to make a point, as if he had learned fear was something to be ashamed of.

“I was,” Jeonghan says, glancing back for a second before looking away, “I was so scared I could barely move.”

“Joshua wasn’t,” Chan says softly and Jeonghan looks back to him with a smile on his lips, something wistful and barely there.

“Joshua has seen worse,” Jeonghan says sadly. _Joshua has done worse._

“I have too,” Chan says then and Jeonghan feels as if he hadn’t really meant to say it, Chan’s jaw clenched, hands clutching the armrests. So Jeonghan looks away; he’s starting to understand that for all the attention Chan brings to himself he feels better unseen, that his loud voice and sharp tongue are a disguise, too, something behind which to hide in plain sight. So Jeonghan looks away and he waits him out and maybe it’s the warmth of the room, the smell of lavender and the gentle shadows dwelling there, but when Chan speaks again his voice sounds softer, subdued, almost sad.

“It wasn’t – it wasn’t out to get us. The ghost, I mean. It didn’t feel like it wanted to hurt us. It just felt like it was suffering.”

“Yes,” Jeonghan acquiesces, hiking the covers higher over Wonwoo’s shoulders, “you’re right, it did.”

Maybe it’s the approval in Jeonghan’s voice, maybe it’s the fact that he still isn’t looking at him, but there’s the sound of Chan shifting, settling more comfortably into the chair and when Jeonghan glances back at him, something quick and unnoticed, Chan has brought his knees up against his chest, head thrown back towards the ceiling, gaze lost and distant.

“I’m always scared when I get home,” Chan says softly and it sounds like a confession, like a secret kept hidden for a lifetime. Jeonghan doesn’t say anything, simply hums under his breath to let Chan know he’s still listening, smoothing the covers of the bed.

“Sometimes nothing happens. Sometimes something does, and I never know what does it.”

He stops again and still Jeonghan doesn’t say anything, still he doesn’t look at him. But there’s shadows twining at Chan’s feet, curling over his ankles where his pants have risen up and maybe he notices them, maybe he doesn’t, but they’re soft and gentle and Chan keeps talking after a while, voice steady, body soothed.

“It’s the not knowing that’s the worst. I could do anything or nothing and it wouldn’t make a difference but there must be a reason, there must be some logic there, because if there isn’t, then why is it happening?”

Jeonghan has no answer to give, and the grief that unfurls in his chest has him turn to look at Chan, Chan curled up in his chair, bruised face looking up at the ceiling. _A reason,_ he thinks. Jeonghan had looked for one, too. A reason for the centuries Joshua had spent buried under bones and dry earth, a reason for the devastation ravaging Wonwoo’s mind, a reason for Minghao’s loneliness, for his own lost gift, for the emptiness that he still felt, sometimes, looking at the cards. He knew were they lay, now, those reasons. He knew where to find them; a wretched shape crawling upon the ground, raw and tormented, broken voice wailing, _let me go, let me go, it hurts_.

“I used to find reasons myself,” Chan continues and Jeonghan’s attention snaps back to him. “My grades or the mess I made or, I don’t know, how I stayed out too late but even if I didn’t do those things it still happened and I knew they were just pretexts. I wanted to ask why, before I left. I tried to talk and it turned into a fight, like it always does. I don’t know what else I expected.”

Jeonghan has the sudden urge to reach out to him, unfurl him from the chair, bring him out where it’s safe but he knows it will be unwelcomed and so he remains where he is; yet when Chan closes his eyes shadows twine in his hair, soft as a whisper.

“It makes you feel worthless. It’s not just the hits, it’s the words, too. I makes you feel worthless and angry, so angry, and there’s the fear, always there, and when people went after Vernon I would beat them up and it felt good and then it felt terrible.”

“So yeah,” Chan says, a finishing note in his voice, “the only time I’m scared is when I have to go home.”

“It’s not your home,” Jeonghan says, because there is nothing else to say. “It’s not your home, not anymore. Your home is here, now.”

Chan cracks an eye open, lets out a deep breath before straightening in the chair, staring at Jeonghan.

“Minghao said he was gonna kill my dad,” he says in a breath, an almost surprised lilt to his words. Jeonghan laughs then, the last thing he expected, and he hears Wonwoo stir behind him.

“He probably would have. Minghao is… He has ideas about what a family should be.”

“He was very angry,” Chan says and adds, after a thoughtful second, “I liked it.”

“Minghao sort of collects people. And the ones who stick, he… He keeps them close.”

“Did he collect you, too?”

“Yeah,” Jeonghan laughs again, light and airy, “you can put it like this.”

Minghao had felt like home, right away. A home Jeonghan had long searched for, warm and safe, a home that knew him and it had been easy, so easy, to fit himself into the cracks of Minghao’s being.

“I want to stick,” Chan says then, an intensity in his gaze that wasn’t there a moment ago. “I… I like it here,” he adds in a softer voice, shoulders coming up to his ears, an embarrassed blush dusting his cheeks.

“Here likes you too,” Jeonghan says with an indulgent smile.

“That’s what Vernon said,” Chan says suddenly, “that the shop liked me. How can a place like anyone, though?”

Jeonghan tilts his head, pondering.

“I don’t know,” he says, “but this is an old house. A lot of things have happened here. A lot of magic, too. Sometimes it is enough to give a place a soul.”

“The shadows,” Chan continues, “the shadows, they’re special, aren’t they? I think they watch over me when I sleep.”

“They do. They like you too.”

“Why?”

Jeonghan shrugs, turning back to glance at Wonwoo and he has the distinct impression that the man is awake, keeping his eyes closed and his breath even purely to give them a semblance of privacy.

“They just do. They like kindness.”

“They think I’m kind?”

“Yeah,” Jeonghan says, looking at Chan, “and they’re right.”

Chan sort of gapes at him but before he can say anything there’s an exaggerated yawn from behind them, Wonwoo stretching like a cartoon character, and Jeonghan looks back at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Sorry,” Wonwoo says, and he actually does look it, “this was very touching and all but I gotta pee like a drunken horse.”

“You’re disgusting,” Jeonghan informs him as Wonwoo slowly extirpates himself from the bed, still half dazed from sleep, walking like his legs are numb. They probably are, Jeonghan thinks, watching him waddle to the bathroom in a particularly ungainly fashion.

When he looks back at Chan the kid has a pensive look on his face, gaze slightly faraway but there is no traces of tension left in his limbs, no shadow in his face; he’s slouching in the chair, rocking it slowly from side to side and this is what he should look like, Jeonghan thinks, just a kid loafing around, but there’s bruises on his face, an old grief in his eyes and Jeonghan knows then that he too will carry this within him always, that it will fade as it must, yet never to be completely erased.

  
  


**2.**

When Wonwoo comes back into the room Minghao is there and Chan can almost feel the wave of relief that lifts him off the ground. Chan watches Minghao fret over Wonwoo who rolls his eyes, Minghao asking too many questions and it’s a bit fascinating, how worry changes him; just like anger had hardened his features into something almost foreign, worry softens him to bits, wide eyes and fluttering hands. Wonwoo shuts Minghao up with a kiss. Chan averts his eyes.

They all file into the kitchen – somehow the library still felt off limit, as if something was lingering there they did not dare disturb. Maybe it was true, though, maybe something truly did. When Chan had assured everyone he could sleep there fine he had been unable to close his eyes. Vernon had stayed, too, Chan could feel him right next to him, taut as a bowstring, holding his hand in a vice grip. The air itself felt heavy, full of something vile that brought the taste of decay to his lips. Somehow even the shadows seemed to have deserted, the ones he felt watching over him as he slept and the room itself felt slightly askew, slightly wrong. Disturbed, somehow, by what had happened there, by the presence they had dragged back from the sleep of the dead.

And so Chan hadn’t tried to be brave this time, hadn’t felt the need for posturing. He’d grabbed Vernon in one hand and their bedding in the other and they had padded to Jeonghan’s room on the upper floor, asking if there was any other place where they could sleep. Jeonghan hadn’t laughed. He had led them to an empty room across his own, one that had obviously been used for storage, one it seemed they had started emptying and Chan hadn’t dare ask if it was for him. Vernon and him had set up camp there, curled together atop the duvet, strange dreams rattling their sleep. Something was still missing, something of the ease and the warmth Chan used to find in this house, right before sleep; it had gone, maybe, it had gone with that cursed shape they had invited in.

“I need to talk to my mum,” Wonwoo is saying, a bit frantic, slicking his bed-hair back and Chan blinks, the sound of his voice bringing him out of his thoughts. Wonwoo looks a bit harried, something that settles in puffy grooves around his eyes and Chan wonders how it must have felt to have that thing inside him, to feel it in his flesh, in his bones.

“Ah, that’s cute,” he coos, clasping his hands against his chest and it wrestles a half-smile out of Wonwoo. Vernon elbows him without force, making that thing with his eyebrows he always does when he thinks Chan is being rude. Chan sticks out his tongue at him and Vernon’s hand under the table, the one that holds his own, tightens slightly, Vernon trying his best to quell the smile rising to his lips.

“I’m gonna ask her about the ghost, you dumbass,” Wonwoo answers without any real bite in his voice, “she’s a shaman too.”

Chan makes a face at him and Wonwoo answers in kind, something especially ugly that has Chan laughs despite himself and he wonders in passing when did it get so easy with Wonwoo, snarky comments and stupid jokes and maybe it had to do with that first night, the one where Chan had stood in the darkened shop with his wrecked face, heart thundering in his chest and Wonwoo had acted just like Chan had needed him to, light and safe and easy.

“You are going back to your hometown?” Joshua’s voice rises, dragging everyone’s attention to himself.

“No,” Wonwoo answers carefully, “remember how phones are a thing?”

“Oh,” Joshua says, blushing lightly, “right.”

Chan exchanges a knowing glance with Vernon, eyebrows raised to his hairline. If they had yet to get the whole story, they had gathered that something was seriously wrong with Joshua. Chan’s money was on Joshua being a time-traveling wizard. Vernon tabbed on amnesia because he’s boring.

“She’ll probably know what to do,” Wonwoo says, the forced confidence in his voice escaping absolutely no one. “I hope,” he adds quietly after a pause, a little deflated.

At his side Minghao shifts, slipping his hand in his and the grateful glance Wonwoo sends him has Chan wondering if he’ll ever be like this, if he’ll ever know this easily exactly what Vernon needs to feel better, if he’ll ever be enough. He looks down at their own clasped hands and this feels new, it does, despite all the time they have spent together. Something had shifted, something fundamental contained in the breath of these three words Vernon had told him and it felt so long ago, days stretched over endless nights yet it felt so close, too, so raw, barely enough time to find footing on the shifting ground. He can feel Vernon’s warmth at his side – his own skin is rich with the feel of it, with his nearness and the touch of his hand and this is one thing that is real, one thing he wants to keep, cradle in his hands like fireflies and watch the light between his fingers.

Chan raises his head and looks around the table at those faces he knows well now, Jeonghan and Joshua and how they lean into each other without seeming to notice; he looks at those he knows less yet is coming to love all the same, Wonwoo and Minghao and Wonwoo’s soft gaze on Minghao’s bright face and he listens to their voices twining together in the clean air of the kitchen, smells of drying flowers and spices and something else, something that belongs entirely to the house, an undercurrent of fallen leaves and summer grass. This too he wants to keep, salvage from the current of his life and put on the shelves of his mind to take out later, when it will be less gentle, less easy, and he knows what’s awaiting them, broken hands and a wretched shape crawling on the floor. But for now, for now there is warmth, there is amity, there is kindness. For now it is fine.

“It is settled, then,” Minghao says with a note of finality in his voice and Chan realizes he hadn’t listened one bit, mind drifting with the breeze coming in from the opened window. But nothing is asked of him, Joshua’s drifting upstairs to Minghao’s office with Jeonghan in tow, Minghao gathering himself to confront whatever it is clinging to the library while Wonwoo fishes out his phone. So Chan remains seated at the table, playing with Vernon’s fingers who’s trying unsuccessfully to stifle a yawn.

“Don’t you guys have school?” Wonwoo asks then, scrolling through his contacts.

“It’s Sunday,” Vernon informs him listlessly, head pillowed on his arms and Chan’s now free hand comes to rest in his hair.

“Oh, right,” Wonwoo says as he finds the number he’s looking for, staring at his screen without doing anything about it.

“Aren’t you calling?” Chan asks, leaning over to watch his screen.

“I’m in for a bollocking,” Wonwoo says and Chan laughs; Wonwoo looks so young suddenly, and he wants to see the woman who makes him like this. He reaches over, taps the button for video call and watches it ring. Wonwoo sucks in his teeth, sending him a death glare but he doesn’t hang up and the call rings three times before it connects.

“Wonwoo, hello,” a woman is saying on the screen and she has a pleasant voice, Chan notices right away, a pleasant face too and he sees the traces of Wonwoo in her. Her hair is pulled back in a tight bun and she seems to be sitting outside, Chan can see part of an old house behind her. Wonwoo’s childhood home, maybe, and it feels a bit strange to see, a proof that Wonwoo exists beyond the boundaries of their small universe delimited by the walls of the house.

“What did you do,” the woman asks with a furrow of her brows and Wonwoo cringes, reclining back in his chair as if he could escape her glare that way.

“We might have tried something,” Wonwoo says, pouring all the lightness he can into his voice.

“Who’s we?” the woman asks, “was Minghao there?”

“Yes,” Wonwoo says and the woman nods; she seems relieved, somehow, as if Minghao’s presence meant nothing terrible could have happened. And she’s right, Chan thinks, Minghao wouldn’t have let anything happen to Wonwoo. Chan thinks back to Minghao’s flutter of worry, to his hand finding Wonwoo’s, to his relentless vigil as Wonwoo had slept.

“What was it then?”

“Well,” Wonwoo starts, licking his lips, looking back to Chan as if he needed support but all he gets is a helpless shrug.

“We sort of… You know, I told you about the tree and all, how we thought someone might be buried there?”

“Don’t tell me,” the flattened voice of Wonwoo’s mother comes out of the phone’s speaker, “please don’t tell me you called the spirit.”

“I sort of did?” Wonwoo says, “it wasn’t even supposed to work, honest, I didn’t have half the required stuff and we just wanted a chat you know, nothing major.”

“Felt pretty major to me,” Chan grumbles at his side, Wonwoo shoving him with a grimace.

“What was that?” the woman asks, Chan smiling sweetly at Wonwoo.

“Nothing, just. That’s Chan,” Wonwoo says, angling the screen so his mother can see Chan, who straightens up and waves.

“And that’s Vernon,” Wonwoo continues, panning the phone to Vernon who sat up too, his polite face on. The woman’s expression changes when she sees him, brows furrowing and Chan wonders if she can feel that Vernon is different, if she can see all the shapes nestled within him.

“Nice to meet you,” she says, polite, “now what was ‘pretty major’?”

Wonwoo sends a nasty glare to Chan who tries and fails at a contrite smile, before bringing the phone back towards his face.

“Okay, look,” he says, bracing himself. “It didn’t really go as planned.”

And he tells her, he tells her about the library and the makeshift altar and the fan and the dance. He tells her about the presence that had found them, about what the others had told him it had said and done because he himself wasn’t there anymore, his mind drifting someplace else, somewhere dark until the creature had gone and he was called back to his body. He tells her everything, how long he had slept afterwards and how worried Minghao had been, he tells her about the soft dreams he had and how it had mostly just felt sad. She doesn’t interrupt him. She listens and Chan watches her face change, intent and focused. And he likes her, Chan realizes, he does, she feels like he always thought a mother should feel, solid and strong and knowing.

“It shouldn’t have been able to possess you,” she says, “I taught you how to protect yourself from intrusions. You must have let it in, somehow.”

“I didn’t, though,” Wonwoo says, “I swear.”

“I believe you,” she answers him, “I believe you thought you didn’t. Tell me everything again. Every details, even what you think is unimportant. Start from the beginning.”

And so Wonwoo starts again. He starts from the kitchen this time, from that morning where Chan and Vernon had found them trying on the old hanbok, Wonwoo dancing with the fan, the knives glittering on the table. The idea that had come from Chan himself, _so you can talk to spirits and shit_ and a corner of the woman’s mouth lifts in a half-smile, Chan cringing. Wonwoo doesn’t skip any details, eyes looking inwardly back to that day, everything he can remember, every words anyone had said; Chan and Vernon’s trip to the store, Jeonghan, Joshua and Minghao setting up the library, the incense and the painted screen and the paper garlands.

“Thank you,” Wonwoo’s mother says when he’s done. “You kept wearing that hanbok, you used the fan and the bells.”

“Yes,” Wonwoo says, hesitation in his face as an idea is planted into his mind.

“Do you know where they came from?”

Wonwoo shakes his head, and there’s a short silence as they both think.

“You said the garments, the objects felt powerful,” Wonwoo’s mum starts again, slowly, the idea unfurling.

“They did. Kinda like yours do. But even more so.”

“And Minghao just had them laying around.”

A shrug from Wonwoo, half a grimace.

“It would have sufficed,” she says with something grave in her voice that has them pay attention. “If the garments had belonged to the one you called, it would have sufficed for him to take over you.”

Wonwoo’s eyes widen and it seems so obvious now that she said it, so obvious he should have known; the soft thrumming against his skin as he’d put them on, the power that had coursed through his veins as he had started the dance.

“Find out where Minghao got them, if he remembers. If he doesn’t, there is another way.”

“What way?”

“Call it again. Trap it in the garments. We leave parts of our soul behind, in the objects that we use, in the ones that we love. If it was his, he will come.”

“I’m not sure I want to see him again.”

“You do,” the woman laughs then, “but you will need help, this time.”

“What kind of help?”

“If you want what’s left of his human soul and not the tortured ghost that visited you, you might need to go get it yourself, bring it back, trap it in the garments.”

“Go into the dream,” Wonwoo says and there’s a fleeting smile barely touching the woman’s lips, her gaze drifting to Chan’s face who has mushed himself against Wonwoo to watch her.

“The dream, yes, maybe,” she says, and it seems she’s telling something else to Chan, something he doesn’t quite understand.

“I’ll do some research,” Wonwoo says, eagerness seeping into his voice as if he’d wanted to start right away, “I’ll let you know how it goes. Thanks, mum.”

“Be careful,” she says, “be gentle, too. Some dead would rather stay dead.”

Wonwoo nods and they say their goodbyes, watching the phone’s screen turn black. They remain quiet for a few seconds, letting the conversation sink in, before Wonwoo shoots from his chair towards the corridor.

“I’m gonna ask Minghao again,” he says like an invitation, and both Chan and Vernon file behind him. It feels like a mission, Chan thinks, a childish giddiness rising in his stomach despite the seriousness of the situation and he knows Vernon feels the same, it’s in the way he looks back to him, a soft smile on his lips, that same glint in his eyes he gets when they’re sneaking into places where they shouldn’t be.

They find Minghao in the library. There’s bind-runes burnt in the wooden floorboards at the threshold, the smell of devil’s claw in the air and Minghao’s standing in the middle of the room, eyes closed, lips moving over words they cannot hear. They remain at the door, silent until he finishes and his eyes snap open, landing on them immediately.

“What is it?” he asks, shoulders drooping and they hadn’t noticed how tense he was. “You can come in, it’s fine.”

They file in gingerly, Minghao coming to sit on the sofa with a sigh, Wonwoo curling next to him as Chan and Vernon sit on the floor. The room feels different. Not quite right, not yet, but it has been mended, wounds hidden under gauze.

“The hanbok,” Wonwoo starts, voice soft as if Minghao had just put a beast to sleep and he didn’t dare wake it, “you really don’t remember where you found it? My mum thinks it might have belonged to the spirit, and that’s why it was able to take over me.”

Minghao remains quiet for a while, considering Wonwoo, considering this new information, making it fit into what he knows.

“I don’t,” he finally answers, “it was in the reserve. I don’t remember where I got it. It feels like it has always been there.”

“The house,” Chan starts on an inspiration, “is it yours?”

Minghao smiles, something a little rueful that cling to his lips.

“It’s the family house. I think it might have been my grandparents, or great-grandparents, who bought it first. I couldn’t find any papers. My parents put it in my name. That’s why all you leeches can live here rent-free.”

Chan nods, looking back down at his hands, wondering in passing what his own heritage is; he had taken nothing out of his parents’ apartment, only his own knickknacks gathered over the years, things that had value only for himself. But it felt clean, somehow, a break from a past he didn’t want and a bid at building what he truly desired.

“We can use the clothes to call him again, trap him in them,” Wonwoo starts again, Chan lifting his gaze to him. “But, my mum said… She said, if we want to trap his human soul, we have to go get it ourselves.”

“The dream,” Minghao says, just as Wonwoo had.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says hesitantly, “I think so.”

Maybe Minghao catches on to Wonwoo’s hesitation, maybe he has his own doubts; either way he leans forward, elbows on his knees, gaze thoughtful.

“There is sacrifices to be made, in dreams. A right of passage. I don’t want to pay it. Not this time. Not again.”

Minghao’s words hang heavy in the air, a dark veil falling over the quiet room, smothering the air out of their lungs. It’s that grief, that deep sorrow Chan had seen in the other’s gazes time and time again, the one he had never asked about.

“The tree,” Vernon starts suddenly, all eyes falling to him and he doesn’t shy under the attention, not this time. “The tree told me I shouldn’t need dreams. That we are from the same place.”

Minghao stares at him with a thousand thoughts in his gaze, he stares and something shifts in his face, something pained that makes him look older than he is, older and frayed.

“No,” he says, softly, “I’m not sending you there. We don’t know how dangerous it might be. We don’t know anything.”

“But it wasn’t mean,” Vernon insists and he sounds so young, so naive, “it wasn’t evil, it was just sad. I know my true form, now. Maybe I can do it.”

Chan glances at Wonwoo; he wasn’t here then, maybe he doesn’t know, but nothing in his face betrays ignorance. He must have been told, and he hadn’t asked any questions, hadn’t treated Vernon any differently than he had Chan. Light and safe and easy and this feeling rises again, warm smoke in his lungs as Chan leans forward, closer to Minghao, closer to Wonwoo on the couch. This feels right, this feels true, the ground steadying under his feet despite the darkness he can feel lurking at the edges.

“What is your true form?” Wonwoo asks and he looks like he doesn’t want to hear the answer.

“A sparrow,” Vernon answers easily, “an old world sparrow.”

“Ah,” Wonwoo says, his head falling back as he addresses a bitter smile to the ceiling, “of course.”

“What ‘of course’, what?”, Minghao asks, a bit unnerved, “what do you mean?”

Wonwoo remains where he is as he answers, leaned back against the couch, gaze turned away from them all.

“The oldest beliefs in the world are linked to animals,” he starts, his voice taking on another quality as he speaks, deep and rich as earth; Chan and Vernon huddle closer together, listening. It seems the light has dimmed in the room, nothing beyond their little circle delimited by Wonwoo’s voice, by their limbs and their breaths.

“And birds,” Wonwoo pauses there, glancing back down at Vernon, “they’re associated with death more often that not. Ravens, crows, whip-poor-wills, even cuckoos. They’re omens, sometimes, a flock gathered outside the house of the dying, a cawing twice heard on a dark road.”

Minghao is staring at him as if he already knows what Wonwoo will say next, as if he doesn’t want to hear it, eyes wide, face taut.

“Or they snatches the souls of drowning sailors,” Wonwoo continues, “lend their bodies to lost infants’ souls until they are called to heaven, carries the dead within them to their final resting place.”

“Psychopomps,” Minghao lets out in a breath, head falling into his hands.

“Yeah,” Wonwoo says, and his gaze is sad when it alights on Vernon. “Psychopomps.”

A silence follows the words, Chan glancing at Vernon who’s gaze has gone cloudy; he’s not staring at Wonwoo before him, he’s staring at something else, something no one else sees, wind and feathers and the faces of the dead. Minghao still has his face in his hands, hunched over himself and Wonwoo shifts closer to him, gently pulling his hands away, fitting him into his side and Minghao lets him, a sigh escaping him as he settles.

“I wish death wasn’t always hovering so near,” he says in a quiet voice, the words lost against Wonwoo’s skin. “I wish it could let us be.”

“Even for those who do not see it, it is there,” Wonwoo answers him just as gently, a hand stroking his hair and Minghao closes his eyes, settling boneless against him.

“I do not mind it,” Vernon says suddenly, Minghao’s eyes opening a crack to look at him. “Whatever it means, I don’t – if this is what I am, I won’t fight it. When I died the pain ceased. It was peaceful, it felt safe.”

He pauses then, looking down at his hands in his lap, and his voice is tentative when he continues, glancing up at Minghao.

“If we can bring the same peace to the ghost, if… If we can find a way to appease it, I want to try.”

Minghao considers him, dark eyes shining through his fringe and he nods, shifting his weight against Wonwoo to sit up straighter, a sigh caught in his lungs.

“Alright,” he says eventually, “if it is what you want, it is what we’ll do.”

A smile escapes Vernon then, something he swallows back when Minghao’s expression stiffens.

“But we will prepare, this time,” Minghao continues, “I do not want anymore mistakes. I do not want anyone in danger.”

One day Chan will ask, he will ask what happened for them to be so wary, so careful of each other; one day he will ask, when everything has settled. If it ever does, he thinks, looking back at Vernon and it seems he can see the power strumming inside him, this strange force none of them really understand. He finds that it doesn’t really matter, though, that he doesn’t really mind; it has always been there, after all, and knowing now doesn’t change who Vernon is. Someone he sees when he closes his eyes, someone he loves, someone he doesn’t want to be without.

  
  


**3.**

That night Vernon listens to Dino’s breathing when they lay side by side in the bare room on the third floor, eyes fixed on the shadowed ceiling overhead. Dino isn’t sleeping, his breaths even yet Vernon hears him shift from time to time, hears the ruffle of the sheets against his skin and the sigh that escapes him when he finds that he cannot settle. Vernon wants to speak yet he doesn’t know what to say. The events of the day replay in his mind – Minghao’s worried reluctance, Wonwoo’s quiet support, Joshua’s face when they’d told him, colors draining from his face and Vernon doesn’t understand what is so bad about what he is, about what he can do. Jeonghan had looked at him with concern and it’s fine, he’d wanted to say, it’s okay, but no words had passed his lips.

Beside him Dino rolls on his back, kicking the covers off himself as if he is too warm yet Vernon knows he is not; Dino is always cold at night, piling up covers and fitting himself against Vernon to steal his warmth, cold hands against the skin of his arm, cold feet pressing against his calves. That night Dino doesn’t touch him though, that night he remains sagely on his own side of the bed and there’s a carefulness there that didn’t use to be. Vernon has to ask, then, just to make sure, and he turns on his side to look at Dino’s profile, sharpened against the dark by the gentle moonlight streaming through the half-closed curtains.

Vernon had done this so many times, stared at Dino quietly through his eyelashes as sleep would eschew his grasp, pretending to be asleep to steal the few precious moments where Dino was just himself, hidden in the safety of the nightly hours. Vernon had come to realize that Dino’s careful defenses had slowly started to crumble, here in this strange place, that anyone could now peer through the cracks in his guise and see his true self there, waiting to be found. Vernon isn’t sure how he feels about it. It is good, surely, but this side of Dino used to be only his, something precious like a treasure and the possessive part of himself wants to keep him hidden, keep him solely his. Dino deserves better, though. Dino deserves everything.

“Dino,” Vernon says softly, and Dino’s gaze flicks to him, his face turning.

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

Vernon shakes his head, inching closer and for a second he is scared Dino won’t unfurl for him but he does, angling his body towards Vernon almost unconsciously and they fit just like they always do, Vernon tucking his head in the crook of Dino’s neck, Dino’s hand coming to rest in the dip of Vernon’s waist.

“I can’t sleep either,” Vernon says and watches Dino’s brow furrow.

“Why not?”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure,” Dino answers easily, shifting closer to Vernon, holding him tighter against himself. Vernon speaks into his skin, too simple words that sink his worries there, weightless, gone in a breath.

“Are you still okay with what I am?”

There’s a pause where Vernon can feel Dino tense again him but it is gone in a flash, Dino alighting a kiss atop his brow.

“I am. Even though I’m still not sure what it really is.”

“Me neither, to be perfectly honest.”

Dino laughs then, a quiet giggle and it sounds just like when he was a child, young and almost careless. Vernon smiles, burrowing closer still, kissing a jutting collarbone. Dino sighs, his fingers drumming a rhythm against Vernon’s hipbone.

“What did Joshua tell you?” he asks and Vernon has to think about it, about Joshua’s haunting eyes and the sad resignation he’d found there, about the words that had left his lips.

“He said– he said that death changes you, the closer you get. That nothing feels quite the same anymore. That nothing matters the same way.”

“Does it matter more or less?”

“Neither, just different, I think. You know, I feel like… I feel like he was talking about something he knew. About himself.”

Dino doesn’t answer, a thoughtful silence filling the space left between them. He turns fully on his side, staring at Vernon’s eyes, at what he can see of his face in the dark.

“Years from now,” he says, and his voice sounds solemn. “Years from now, when I die. Will you carry me? Lay my bones below the tree?”

Vernon sucks in a breath and he knows what Dino is asking. He stares at him, stares at his perfect face, his beloved lips and he knows their taste, he knows the feel of his golden skin under his hands and he knows that one day nothing will be left of him but ashes against the wind and it won’t matter, then, it won’t matter how much he had loved him, how much he’d carved out of himself to build him a home in his flesh. There will be no way to hold him back, no way to keep him safe against his beating heart; he will become just another amongst the boneyard, anonymous and lost, bones smashed into dust.

_Stay with me_ , Dino is asking, _stay with me until I grow old and brittle, until I die and nothing is left but memories in the minds of_ _the_ _people I loved; and they will die in turn,_ _and I will be truly lost, then, truly forgotten._

“I will,” Vernon says and Dino smiles, something too bright for their dim room. Vernon kisses it off him, runs his hands in Dino’s hair and it’s a wonder, this softness under his hands, this beating pulse and this warm skin. He kisses him again and again, drawing quiet giggles and sharp breaths and this is the true magic, he thinks, the one that lets Dino so open before him, warm and pliant and happy, he hopes, the fear chased away for a blissful moment. Dino is a bit flushed, a bit breathless well he rolls away onto his back, a soft smile stretching his lips, fingers tangled in Vernon’s own.

“How does that even work?” he asks, and Vernon looks at him questioningly.

“You know, like, being a psychopomp?” Dino continues, “how does it work? What are you supposed to do?”

“I don’t know,” Vernon says, “my acceptance letter to creepy school got lost in the mail.”

Dino laughs, shifting until he’s half laying on Vernon’s chest and he plays with the fabric of his shirt, tracing his collarbones with a careful finger.

“It’s not creepy. Should we look it up?”

“Are you being serious?”

“Well, yeah,” Dino says, extending a hand to grab at his phone left on the floor near the mattress.

“I’m pretty sure there’s no instruction manual. Especially not on the internet,” Vernon says, voice unimpressed.

Dino flicks him on the chin, flopping until he’s laying across Vernon’s belly, elbows planted on the mattress to scroll on his phone. Vernon absently plays with Dino’s hair, staring at the ceiling and there’s a lightness in his chest he’s trying to trace the shape of, store in his mind to go back to, later on. It has the taste of Dino’s lips, the sound of his laugh and the warmth of his skin.

“It says here psychopomps are compassionate, nonjudgmental, and friendly,” Dino lists off, disbelief seeping in his tone.

“This is so me,” Vernon says, pinching the meat of Dino’s hips, “I am the friendliest.”

“You spoke to like three people in class all year, one of which you told she didn’t deserve to borrow your pen.”

“She didn’t, though,” Vernon says, remembering, “she called you a bum the day before.”

“Aw,” Dino mock-coos, letting his phone drop on the mattress to curl around Vernon’s body, “my knight in shining armor, withholding pens to defend my honor.”

“Fuck off,” Vernon laughs, pushing at Dino to make him fall off but Dino only grips him tighter, play fighting and it’s so much like when they were children, hiding under the covers, hoping Vernon’s parents wouldn’t hear their whispers and they always did, Vernon’s dad poking his head in the door to gently scold them and they’d giggle, pretending to be asleep and he would pretend to believe them and they felt so giddy at getting away with it. These days feel so faraway now, so simple even though Vernon knows now that today’s events had already been set in motion all those years ago. It feels ineluctable now, that he would end up here, that he would meet these people. The man in the tree had been waiting for him, waiting for him to find his way back.

Dino must see something change in Vernon’s face for he stops moving, falling next to him as if all his strength had left him.

“What is it?” he asks and Vernon turns to him, stares at his face for the span of three heartbeats and a wistful yearning unfurls in his chest; he pulls Dino to him, hugs him to his beating heart and yet it doesn’t feel enough, as if Dino could slip through his fingers, as if he could turn to smoke and vanish into the air.

“Just stay here for a bit.”

“Okay,” Dino says, settling more comfortably against him, hair brushing Vernon’s skin, the smell of him filling his nose, the warmth of him seeping into his being.

“I love you,” Vernon says because it feels like the right thing and it’s Dino who kisses him this time, slow and gentle, a kiss full of all the words he cannot say yet, the ones he never learned to set free, the ones stuck under his heart. But Vernon knows what he means, he understands; his hands find all the right spots, breaths coming out in gasps and Dino is all that matters, all that there is, in this dim room under the moonlight.

“What else do you think is out there?” Dino asks later, when sleep starts to curl around their heavy limbs, when edges start to blur and Dino’s skin under Vernon’s hands feels like velvet.

“What do you mean?” Vernon asks, words slurred together.

“Like, what about werewolves? Or vampires?”

Vernon laughs, one of those tired, careless laugh that comes when his grasp slips.

“I’d love fairies,” he says, “like, those Irish ones. You step in a mushroom circle and woosh!”

Dino giggles, flopping on his belly, hands buried under his pillow. His eyes are half-closed, glinting behind his eyelashes.

“I’d fuck right off to fairyland if I could,” he says, “I’d take you with me. Woosh and all.”

“Woosh,” Vernon repeats, staring at the ceiling overhead and there was a time where he would have done it, where he would have taken Dino away as far as possible, someplace safe where nothing could touch him anymore, where it would just be them and the bruises on his skin would heal never to reappear.

“You did it, kinda,” Dino says in a whisper and Vernon realizes that he’d mumbled his thoughts aloud, his face bursting into flames. But Dino’s right. There may have been no magic circle, no sudden disappearance but they had still found a remote, hidden place where they could be safe, where it could be just them and the people they loved, where belonging had crept unannounced until Vernon couldn’t imagine leaving it behind.

He’s about to answer when there’s a knock at the door, both twisting to stare before remembering to allow for entry. Minghao opens the door but a crack, the darkness of the corridor behind him seemingly spilling into the room as he enters. His hair is a dark mess over his brow, glasses pushed high on his nose and the rumpled clothes he’s wearing tells them he must have been in bed at some point during the night.

“What is it?” Dino asks, the first to find his voice back as Minghao closes the door and leans against it.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Minghao answers quietly, padding to their bed and Vernon realizes that he’s barefooted as he climbs atop the cover, sitting cross-legged at the edge of the mattress. “And you’re not as quiet as you think you are.”

Dino makes a face, wriggling until he manages to entangle himself from the sheets to sit up.

“Were you just stalking the corridors sticking your ear to every door or do you have supersonic hearing?”

Minghao makes a face right back at him, slipping his hands in his pockets.

“I couldn’t sleep,” he repeats, rummaging in his pants, “so I made you guys something.”

He pulls his hands out, opening his left to drop a bracelet in Vernon’s lap. It’s a simple thing, dark strands braided together and fastened to a silver clasp.

“What’s it made of?” Vernon asks as he picks it up, running it through his fingers. It’s soft but stiff, the color faded to a dark brown. It’s pretty, he thinks, just like everything else Minghao does; the songs and the runes and the flowers.

“Human hair and wire,” Minghao answers simply, and they look at him with curled lips.

“It’s not gross,” he adds at their expression, a little defensive.

“It kinda is, to be perfectly honest,” Dino says and Minghao gives him a rueful smile.

“It’s my hair,” he says, as if it would make it any better, “and Wonwoo’s too. I couldn’t get any from Joshua and Jeonghan. I didn’t want to wake them or accidentally walk in on something I could never unsee.”

“Understandable,” Dino deadpans, gaze shifting to the bracelet Vernon is still holding between his fingers like a gutted fish.

“It will help you come back to us,” Minghao says, gazing steadily at Vernon, “should you ever lose your way.”

Vernon’s gaze flicks to Minghao, his dark eyes intense on his face and there’s an underlying of worry there, something pleading and Vernon understands, then; this is the only thing Minghao can do for him. In his mind Vernon sees him bent over his desk, looping fragile strands over wire, simple shapes where he pours all his will, all his magic. Vernon twirls the bracelet between his fingers, feeling the weight of it, too heavy for hair and copper.

“If I lose my way once I’m in there,” he says eventually, staring at Minghao, “when I go to find the tree.”

“Yes,” Minghao answers as he takes the bracelet from Vernon, staring at it for a spare second before holding it out. Vernon offers him his wrist without a word, the bracelet fitting perfectly around it, sitting next to the red string holding the silent bell. Minghao grips Vernon’s hand for a second before letting go and his skin is cold, gentle fingers leaving shivers in their wake.

Vernon looks down at the thin bracelet, feels it pulsing warm against his skin, an Ariadne’s thread to lead him back here, back to Minghao and Wonwoo and the strange house where they made their home. He touches the bracelet gently, quelling the soft feeling that rises in his throat, something halfway to a sob yet it isn’t sadness that he feels. A too deep affection, maybe, a great relief.

“And this is for you,” Minghao is saying then, Vernon’s gaze snapping back to him. He’s holding a necklace to Dino, a pendent shaped like a curved petal dangling from a thin silver chain.

“What’s this one made of? Your nails?” Dino asks, circumspect, staring at the pendant without moving to touch it.

“Bone,” Minghao says and Dino scrutinizes him for any traces of mirth. There is none to find, though, and Minghao leans forward to drop the necklace in Dino’s lap.

“I’m serious,” he says. “I didn’t cut a finger for this though, don’t worry. It’s a very old piece of bone.”

“Please don’t tell me it’s human,” Dino says, gingerly lifting the necklace to turn it over in his hands.

“Honestly it might be, I’m not sure. It was part of a memento mori. I just know it has power, so I used it.”

“You’re the worst witch I know,” Dino says, still staring at the pendant but his tone is light, almost playful.

“You only know two witches, that’s not saying a lot.”

“Only one witch to beat and you still can’t do it,” Dino answers right back and Vernon is afraid he went too far then, gaze flying to Minghao but he is laughing, smile crinkling his eyes and Vernon stares; it’s so rare, he realizes, Minghao smiling like this, open and unconcerned, laughter tumbling from his lips.

“You don’t deserve my gross bone,” he says, swiping his hand towards the necklace but Dino snatches it back, letting himself fall against the pillows.

“Who gives then takes away will suffer agony in hell,” he says, pulling a face before looking back down at the pendant in his hands, turning it over and Vernon notices it then, the rune etched on the underside of the shaving where marrow used to be.

“What’s this?” he asks Minghao, who’s laughter subsides.

“Magic will not work on you as long as you wear this,” he says to Dino, who stares back at him with his full attention. “Except mine, since I made it, but I wouldn’t harm you. Wear it against your skin.”

Dino considers the necklace in his hands before clasping it around his neck in a swift gesture, shoving the bone pendant inside his shirt, against the bare skin of his chest.

“It feels warm,” he says, “it feels like a pulse.”

“Then it must be working,” Minghao says. “Do not lose it. It’s a pretty serious charm.”

“Why are you giving this to me?” Dino asks and Minghao considers him in silence, thoughtful, finding the words, maybe.

“You are just… You do not have any magic. You can’t protect yourself against it. I don’t know what is going to happen. I don’t know how it might affect you. So I made this, because that’s all I could think of to protect you against something I do not know.”

Dino nods gravely, looking down at his chest, at the slight bump of the pendant under his shirt.

“Thank you,” he says, and Minghao smiles, lifting off the bed to pad towards the door.

“Imma let you guys sleep then,” Minghao says, hand on the doorknob.

“Dude wait,” Dino scrambles to sit up, Minghao staring back at him expectantly. “Are werewolves a thing?” he asks, and Vernon elbows him to no avail. “And fairies? What about vampires?”

Minghao laughs, shaking his head.

“You can rest easy, I’m pretty sure werewolves and vampires are made-up. Not sure about fairies. Banshees are a thing, though. And Dullahans.”

Dino gapes at him as Minghao leaves, closing the door quietly behind him.

“Well that’s reassuring,” he says as he falls back against the pillows, Vernon nestling next to him, bringing the sheets up to cover them.

“I’m sure we’d know if a banshee was roaming around.”

“Would we? I didn’t know about you and I’ve known you for years. One day the gal from the pizza place is gonna foretell my death by screaming in my face and what will I do?”

“Eat your pizza and shut up,” Vernon mumbles against Dino’s neck, sleep already claiming him.

“You’re probably right,” Dino says as he shuffles closer, righting his arm around Vernon, sharing warmth. They’re not long to fall asleep, this time. Not long to dream.

_But t_ _he dream is wrong. The sky is dark, and rot-like stretches of grey moss eat at the bones crushed against the earth._ _Vernon is a bird again but there is no wind to bear him, no whispering shadows, no voice in his head. He alights on a heavy branch, twisting and curving towards the ground and the tree itself seems older, bending under a weight that didn’t use to be._

_Are you there? Vernon asks with his bird-voice, trills escaping his sharp beak and he wonders what he is, this time, a magpie or a sparrow or a crow. There is no answer and Vernon lets his swift body take flight, circling around the silent tree, alighting amongst the bones and the rot and the moss._

_Are you angry? He asks and there’s a sound like an intake of breath, a breeze ruffling his feathers, one that carry the smell of leaves and earth and heavy rain._

_I am sorry, Vernon says, we had to know. We want to help._

“ _I do not need your help,” the voice answers and it sounds old,_ _then, so much older than it_ _used to_ _,_ _a dismal melancholy riding on its tail._

_Who were you?_

“ _I do not know,” the voice says, “nor do I want to. Some things must stay buried.”_

_Some d_ _ead_ _would rather stay dead, Wonwoo’s mother had said, and the deepest grief unfurls in Vernon’s chest._

_D_ _on’t you want it to end?_

“ _It has been too long. It cannot end.”_

_A respite, Vernon says then, we can offer you a respite._

“ _There is no respite. You have seen what is left of my human soul. Insanity and pain.”_

_We did it wrong, Vernon trills, we didn’t know._

“ _Why do you want to do_ _this_ _so badly?”_

_Because you’re alone, Vernon says, because you’re in pain._ _B_ _ecause this is not all that you are._

_Maybe it’s a laugh that he hears, maybe it’s the wind against naked bones._ _There’s a silence and the dream seems to waver, blurry edges and faded colors._

“ _If I cannot stop you, I will at least warn you,” the voice says, echoing in Vernon’s head as he loses his grasp. “_ _There is no hell. There is no heaven. There is only here. And there are many who would seek to escape it. You are wrong. I am not alone.”_

  
  


**4.**

Vernon keeps the dream to himself as they prepare. There is enough worry, enough unknowns. So he remains quiet, sitting beside Wonwoo at the kitchen table as the latter wounds a long strip of white linen round and round a mandrake root shaped uncannily like a human body. Wonwoo had spent hours on various websites, each more obscure than the last, to procure the exact root he wanted. The strip he holds smells strongly of the mint Minghao had blended into the oil it was soaked in. Mint, and daffodil for rebirth and something else yet, devil’s claw and a rough bark Vernon had watched Minghao ground into dust.

There’s black scribbles on the white cloth, runes Minghao had carefully etched there like a tattoo. And round and round the linen goes until the root is completely covered, disappearing in layers of oiled cloth, a strange cocoon Wonwoo sets before them on the table, brow furrowed, biting his lips.

“How does it look to you?”

“Good?” Vernon ventures, then hesitates at the sharp glance Wonwoo sends him.

“To be fair I don’t really know what it’s supposed to look like,” he adds and Wonwoo sighs, burying his face in his hands.

“Remind me why we are doing this?” Wonwoo asks, rubbing at his eyes. He looks tired, Vernon realizes; they all do. The week had been merciless, everything needing to be checked and double checked, Minghao buried in his archives, looking for anything that could help, Wonwoo on the phone with his mudang mother more often than not.

“It just feels like we have to,” Vernon says eventually, and it’s true. It feels like this is the sole purpose why he was brought here, the sole purpose of his gift. Dino would tell him that it’s stupid, that it was all up to chance and coincidence, but maybe these are just other words for fate.

“You remember what you have to do?” Wonwoo asks him then and he seems worried, hesitant, dark eyes roaming Vernon’s face.

“Yes,” Vernon says, “I’m just not sure how I’m supposed to do it.”

“We will try to guide you,” Wonwoo says and Vernon smiles. He’s not scared, not worried, yet he knows he should be. But it feels like nothing bad can happen here, not while there is Minghao, not while there is Jeonghan and Joshua. Wonwoo and his haunted eyes, Dino holding his hand. Maybe this is what trust feels like, or maybe he is just too naive. Vernon looks down at his wrist, at the silent bell on its red string and the bracelet of hair and wire, pulsing warm against his skin. _It will help you come back to us,_ Minghao had said, and Vernon knows he will find his way back no matter what.

The scrapping of Wonwoo’s chair as he scoots it back to stand brings him out of his thoughts and Vernon follows him upstairs to the library where Jeonghan and Dino had disappeared for the better part of the day. When they enter, Vernon barely recognizes the room. Where they had dragged the coffee table stands a low offering table covered with a white cloth. There’s brass bowls holding polished apples neatly piled upon one another, smaller bowls holding offerings of rice cakes and eggs, flowers prettily arranged in between them. Where the painted screen had stood, the wall is covered in paintings of bearded men in traditional garb. The only one Vernon recognizes is Yongwang, the dragon king, his portrait hanging beside the one of a man seated on a wooden chair.

Wonwoo steps inside carefully, Jeonghan looking up from where he crouches, smiling at them. He’s arranging the hanbok on the floor, the hanbok Wonwoo had worn, the hanbok of the man in the tree. Jeonghan tugs on a sleeve to flatten it, and Dino is there too, making sure the hem of the outer robe lines up perfectly with the inner one. The belt at the chest is already tied, and before getting up Jeonghan grabs the fan left at his side, opens it, and leaves it near the sleeve as if a hand would shoot out to grab it.

“We’re nearly ready,” he says as he rises to his feet, gaze fleeting over the room and the cloths they hung against the walls, red and blue and white, dashes of green and yellow. “Does it look more like what you had in mind?”

“It’s perfect,” Wonwoo says as he steps fully inside, going to kneel at the hanbok’s side. “It’s just missing this.”

Where the head should be he places the mandrake root in its cocoon of linen, the black ink of the runes standing out sharply against the white of the cloth.

“Where are Minghao and Joshua?” he asks then, staring as if Jeonghan would produce them from his pockets.

“Doing god knows what in Minghao’s room,” Dino answers, stepping back to admire his work. It’s a little unsettling, this garment on the floor, and as he stares Vernon thinks that maybe the ghost never really left it; it doesn’t feel empty, it feels as if a low pulse still inhabits it, left waiting and wanting.

“Are we really doing this tomorrow?” Dino adds, glancing from Jeonghan to Wonwoo, who shrugs.

“We’re as ready as we will ever be. Might as well.”

“Might as well? I was hoping for a little more confidence,” Dino mumbles as he joins Vernon, slipping his fingers into his. His hand is cold, as if all warmth had been stolen and Vernon remembers that he’d been touching the hanbok. He’s glad for the shave of bone resting against the skin of his chest then, glad for Minghao and his thoughtfulness. Whatever happens, it should leave Dino unscathed.

As if they had heard, Joshua and Minghao’s footsteps echoes in the corridor, and soon they appear in the doorway, taking in the room with an appreciative glance.

“That’s almost impressive,” Minghao says, a shoulder against the door frame.

“Almost?” Jeonghan says sharply, and Minghao laughs, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Alright, it is, I am thoroughly impressed.”

“That’s better,” Jeonghan says, leaning back against Joshua who came to stand behind him.

A soft silence falls upon them then, as each looks at the objects they brought here, the offerings and the paintings and the hanbok on the floor and it is real, it is, the enormity of what they are about to do finally letting itself known. There is a weight pressing against Vernon’s chest; the worry he hadn’t felt until then maybe, or just a sense of anticipation for what is about to come.

“Dawn, then?”

It’s Minghao who asks, eyes fixed on Wonwoo, who takes a breath before nodding. Vernon isn’t sure if the hour chosen to perform the ritual actually matters. But he’s coming to understand that a lot of the magic Minghao performs rests on symbols. So maybe it does. Raising souls with the raising sun.

“That gives you the whole night,” Wonwoo continues, gaze shifting to him and Vernon jolts. In the flurry of preparation he had almost forgotten, he had almost forgotten that his part starts right now, with the coming of the night.

“You will have time,” Minghao speaks, “so do not rush. And if you cannot find it, it’s fine. We can try again.”

Vernon looks at him, and then past him at the offering table and the hanbok, the mandrake root and the runes etched upon the linen. And he knows then that everyone believes he will succeed. That the whole ritual rests upon his shoulders and that no one ever doubted him. I’m nothing, he wants to tell them, I do not know how to do this, I am not sure I can bring anything back. But the words remain stuck in his throat and somehow the trust placed in him warms him, and somehow, looking at Minghao’s earnest gaze, at Jeonghan’s reassuring smile, he starts to believe that he can do this.

“I’m ready,” he says then, and Dino’s hand tightens around his own.

Vernon chooses to start in the room on the third floor, the one he shares with Dino, still half-full of cardboard boxes and dust bunnies. He sits cross-legged on the bed, Dino at his side and Minghao across them. Minghao holds a small copper bowl in his hands, full of an oil smelling sharp and peppery. They say nothing, not as Minghao dips his fingers in the bowl and traces a rune upon Vernon’s forehead, not as he bends his head and starts to chant in a thin voice barely above a whisper, in a tongue Vernon doesn’t understand yet finds oddly familiar. Minghao grabs his hands before leaving, squeezing his fingers and there’s worry in his eyes but he doesn’t give any parting advice, doesn’t offer any more charms.

Minghao leaves the door open behind him and Vernon turns to Dino, shadows swirling from the corners of the room, from below the bed. They twine around him, in his hair, around his ankles and the hands he extends to Dino who takes them in his, staring into his eyes.

“It feels like they’re saying goodbye,” Dino says, gaze falling to the dark smoke twining around their clasped hands.

“Don’t say that,” Vernon says, sucking in a breath, “it sounds like I’m not coming back.”

Dino’s grasp tightens and he tugs a little, bringing Vernon closer to him.

“You are, though.”

“Of course I am,” Vernon says and he hopes this won’t turn out to be a lie.

“I have nothing to give you,” Dino says then and he looks stricken, “I have no magic runes or bracelets or nothing that could help.”

“That’s not true,” Vernon answers and he wraps his arms around Dino, awkwardly crushing him to his chest. “You have everything I want. I’ll always come back for you.”

Dino’s arms come up to hug him back and there’s words mumbled against the skin of his neck Vernon doesn’t quite hear, but somehow he knows what Dino just said.

“I do too,” he says then, “I love you.”

When Dino parts from him he looks sad, so sad Vernon can only kiss him, again and again until he draws a laugh from him.

“It’s gonna be alright,” Vernon says, “it’s gonna be fine,” and Dino nods, wanting so hard to believe him.

“I think it is time,” he adds and Dino nods, moving to get off the bed before Vernon’s hand shoots out to grab him.

“No,” he says, “stay, please. I don’t want to be alone.”

Dino nods, sitting back quietly, wide eyes trained on Vernon. Vernon never let anyone watch him before. He doesn’t really know himself what it looks like, the shift. He doesn’t know if his bones break to reform, he doesn’t know if the feathers pierce his skin and if his eyes roll back into his head, his face mangled into a beak as his body shrinks. But it is painless, and so he hopes it is painless to watch, too. He looks down at his hands, drawing a breath, looks back up at Dino one last time before closing his eyes. This is the image he wants to take with him, Dino seated on their shared bed, his hair a mess, lips slightly parted and kissed red.

There is many souls, inside Vernon. He looks inwards and sees each of them, mingled into his own, yet he must go deeper for the one that he seeks. The oldest one, the first one, and the scar below his ribs starts to throb. When he finds it, it welcomes him like an old friend and the shape it lends him feels intimate, unlike any other. The swift wings, the sleek feathers, the slightly curved beak. It feels like an evidence and when he stretches his arms they are wings, and when he opens his mouth it’s a chirp that gets out.

He raises his head at a sharp intake of breath and Dino is there, eyes wide with awe, and Vernon hops on the palm he offers up.

“I knew,” Dino says, “but somehow seeing it happen is a whole other thing.”

Vernon wants to ask what it looked like, what it felt like, but he knows his words are gone. Dino tells him anyway.

“Your edges blur. I didn’t really see what happened. It’s like staring into the sun. Your eyes don’t want to stay on it for too long.”

He strokes the soft feathers on Vernon’s bird chest, follow the line of his wings, lightly traces his tail.

“You have to go, now,” Dino says, but Vernon doesn’t know where to. That’s the only thing no one could tell him. How to find the other side, how to cross over. The answer must be somewhere within him though, and so he looks inward again, seeking a thread but there is nothing there, nothing but hollow bones and a quick heart. There is no wind to bear him, no height to soar to. Yet when Dino moves to open the window for him, he somehow knows that this isn’t where he must go. So he flits off the bed, down to the floor where the shadows have sunk and he listens to their murmurs, soft whispers like a breeze against his feathers and he follows them, follows their current through the house because there is nothing else, nothing else of the other side.

They bring him down instead of up, down where it’s dark instead of light, cold instead of warm. The house has never seemed this big, corridors stretching to unseen lengths and ceilings too high to see. And then, then there is no more ceilings. Then there is no more hallways, no more dark rooms and hardwood floors. There is only a purple sky, and a desert of dry earth.

Vernon folds his wings, alights on top of a smashed skull and the dream had softened the edges, he knows now, the dream had blunted the sharpness of death. The air smells stale, full of dust and ashes and when he looks down the empty sockets of the skull are staring back at him, a carrion beetle crawling from the gaping jaw, skirting the sharp edges of broken teeth. There is no wind, no sound besides the distressed whispers of the shadows who followed him here and there’s a crushing weight to the sky above him, a cloudless, purple sky bearing down on him like a lid.

Yet he must find the tree, the tree and the soul buried there and so he takes flight, soaring through the still air and it seems that the dust moves with him, that the fingers of the dead reach out to him, a lonely spark of life in their desert of affliction. Vernon remembers then what the tree had told him, _there are many here who would seek to escape,_ and he shivers, forcing himself higher, out of reach, but there is no escaping the dead. When he finds the tree, when he lands amongst the great roots, he can hear them whispering, hear them whine and wail, fingers of dust and ashes tugging at his feathers, clawing at his shape and their touch is painful, pouring grief and agony in his hollow bones.

_I am not here for you,_ he tells them but they do not listen and they keep tugging at him, whispers turning to supplications, to cries of anger and Vernon tries to fly but he cannot, he is rooted there amongst smashed bones and dead souls. It’s when his fearful struggle turns to panic that the voice is heard above the cacophony of clamors, and it is sharp, cutting like a knife, dispelling the souls and their cries.

“Leave him,” it says, and this time Vernon hears it outside his head. “He is not for you.”

Vernon feels the touch of the dead leave him, their voices fading to nothing, and he hops to a root rising tall above the ground.

_Thank you,_ he says in his voiceless words, burrowing against the bark.

“I warned you,” the voice says, “and yet you have come.”

_You knew I would._

“I did. It does not mean I did not hope otherwise.”

_Who are they?_

“You know who they are.”

_Does everyone… Does everyone end up like that?_

“Dead?”

_Suffering._

Again there is this sound like a laugh but it bears no joy and Vernon shivers, an inexplicable sorrow unfurling in his chest.

“Do you want me to tell you only the bad ones are here? I told you, there is no hell, there is no heaven. But some are sleeping, and maybe they dream pleasant dreams. Some are flying on the wind, and some whisper amongst themselves, build songs and stories that I sometimes hear. Some become part of the shadows that you’ve seen, and some like to play amongst the roots and the bones. All is not bad. All is not good, either.”

Vernon looks out at the desert before him, at the naked bones, some stacked atop one another, some too smashed, too old to recognize what they were.

_Where am I, exactly? If I am not dreaming._

“Where you’ve always been,” the voice answers, and Vernon stares at the trunk of the tree in lack of eyes to stare at. There is a sharp sound, wind through a crack and the voice rises again, almost amused.

“It is hard to explain. Think of it as a mirror, a distorted reflection of a place through time and space. So, you are where you’ve always been, only different.”

_I didn’t leave the house,_ Vernon realizes then, _I followed the shadows and they led me here, but I never left the house._

“And so you did not. That house stands where the tree stood when it was just a tree, when the boneyard was just a boneyard, when I, too, was something else entirely.”

_Do you remember?_

“No.”

_Do you want to?_

“There are flashes. Earth falling onto my face. Soft hands. Laments of the dying and a vast hopelessness.”

Vernon looks down, listens silently to the whispers that have risen anew but these ones are curious, soft, almost comforting. They twine in the branches of the tree, flutter its evergreen leaves, and it seems that the tree itself is listening, shadows curling against its rough bark, an embrace of darkness yet it seems soothing, almost welcomed.

“There are bones, under the tree,” the voice starts again, slowly, almost reluctantly.

“Old bones, and the old soul that clings to them.”

Vernon’s head snaps up and he dives to the ground, rooting amongst the crushed bones and dry earth but this is not the way and whispers press against him on all sides, urgent and frustrated. Up then, up, up around the trunk until he finds what he is looking for, a squirrel hole where no squirrel will ever burrow and he folds his wings as he alights at the edge, peering inside but there is only darkness. The whispers are still there, pressing, excited, and so he hops inside, hoping to find a sturdy ground where there is none. The tree is hollow, and Vernon falls.

He falls for a long time, much too long, it seems, for the size of the tree and the flapping of his wings barely slows his descent. It is warm, here, much too warm for a hollow tree and the walls he grazes seem to pulse with a slow heartbeat; there’s something alive, something alive and watchful.

Vernon alights on soft earth. It is humid inside the tree, as if rain had fallen not long ago, the warm smell of damp earth rising into the air, damp earth and something older; an undercurrent of rot, something that has Vernon shiver, fluffing up his feathers. It isn’t really dark here, a soft glow coming from the earth itself, from the pulsing walls of the tree and the well he fell into. Vernon hops once, twice, wondering if he will have to dig for the bones, if he will ever be able to fly upwards out of the tree, if the grabbing fingers of the dead will try to keep him there. And then, he ceases wondering. He doesn’t have to dig. The old bones are right here.

There are two skeletons, resting on the soft, damp earth. Laying on their side they face each other, legs folded up and tangled. One of them embraces the other, its arm lifted, resting against the other’s neck, their faces merely inches apart. The other touches its lover lightly on the shoulder, because that’s what they are, that’s what they can only be. Its skull is caved in, dark earth filling the empty space.

Vernon approaches, breath stuck in his lungs. It feels too intimate a scene for him to witness. The two skeletons rest stark in the middle of the hollow trunk, as if the tree had grown around them to protect them, protect their final resting place, their final embrace. Vernon approaches, and Vernon feels it, then, the soul. It is there, coiled inside the rib cage of the smaller body like a beating heart. And there is only one, Vernon knows, there is only one; the skeleton with its head bashed in, it is empty, nothing more than calcified bones and dry earth.

_Where did it go?_ Vernon asks, _why are you alone?_

The soul stirs, slowly, a shimmer upon the ground and the words it whispers are heard in Vernon’s mind.

_It was never here,_ it says, and the simple words carry too much sorrow. _It left, and I couldn’t follow. The magic held me there, the magic and the dead._

_You became the tree._

Something painful takes hold of Vernon, something that unfurls like smoke in his lungs and he knows it is not his own grief that he feels, it is not his own loss yet if he could cry he would, if he could wail the dead would hear him and his body seems too small, too small to contain the extend of that sorrow.

_I died in a shallow grave amongst its roots, embracing an empty body I used to love and it became me, and I became it, and it grew of my magic and its own entwined. I am many things now._

_You said there was no hell, no heaven. There was only here. Where is their soul, if not here?_

Vernon’s chest swells of this borrowed grief and the shimmer on the ground seems to grow, seems to embrace the bones that house it and for a second Vernon sees what it looked like in life, dark hair and almond eyes, a thin, sharp mouth. It disappears in a sigh like mist under the sun, swallowed by the bones and the earth.

_I do not know. I do not know. I looked for it. I called but it never came. It is not here. It is not here, but there is nowhere else._

_Come with me,_ Vernon says then, _come with me and I will find it for you._

_Why would you succeed where I have failed?_

_Because I have help,_ Vernon says, _because I am not alone._

_There is no use for it. It is too late._

_But d_ _on’t you want someone to know?_ Vernon asks, and he can hear the edge of anguish in his own voice. _Don’t you want someone to know what happened to you, even if it’s too late, even if it won’t change anything? Someone to say that you didn’t deserve it, someone to say that it was awful, someone to share the load of your grief even for a second. Someone to know that you were here,_ _someone to know the extent of your suffering_ _,_ _someone to know_ _that you died in the end._ _Someone to know._

There is no answer, but the shimmer grows again, flowing over the earth, the bones, pushing against the walls of the tree that encloses them and it pulses like a heartbeat, like sobs.

_I will carry you,_ Vernon says, _I will carry you and I will find my way back._

And the shimmer gathers itself around his feathered body, pushing, pulling at him until Vernon lets go, until Vernon lets it in and as it pours inside his being it feels warm, warm as a summer rain. As the last of it disappears under his feathers the tree grows darker, and Vernon takes flight. He learns that souls are not weightless, then, and the flight up to the light is tiring; he bumps against the rough walls of the hollow trunk, loosing height, before finding new strength and it seems an age before he bursts out of the squirrel hole into the purple sky.

He alights on a branch to rest but it is a mistake; already the fingers of the dead are pulling at him, their wails clear in his ears and he rips himself out of their grasp, fighting to the sky but he is alone and they are many, he cannot shake them all off. They cling to his feathers, tugging painfully and he doesn’t know which way to fly, panic and pain drowning the thoughts in his head. And then, he remembers – as much as it might feels this way he isn’t alone, somewhere within him there is the magic, the magic entwined with a bracelet of hair and wire, the magic that will bring him home. So he closes his eyes in flight, looking inwards to find it, find the Ariadne’s thread he knows is there, and when he finds it, he grasps it and doesn’t let go.

_Let them be ready,_ he thinks wildly, _please let them be ready._

  
  


**5.**

Wonwoo has already been dancing for close to an hour, sweat pearling on his forehead, when the bird flies into the room. And immediately, he knows that something is wrong. There is too many spirits clinging to the panicked bird, too many dead souls ripping his feathers. He catches Joshua’s eyes and he knows the witch felt it too; he’s already springing to his feet, diving forward to catch the bird but it’s against Chan’s chest that it crashes, Chan who catches him in his hands, the bird inert, chest fluttering. And then, the spirits rise.

The soft light of early morning is snuffed out, whispers filling the room, cold fingers pulling at each of them, tugging, scratching, looking for entry and they’re not long to find the weakest one; Chan, backed up against the far wall, clutching the bird to his chest, wide eyes filled with fear. The souls round on him, clammy fingers of ashes and dust pulling at his hair, his clothes, his skin and he can hear their clamors inside his own mind, can feel their breath against his skin, smell their blight and decay and were he to open his mouth they would fill it, he knows, pour inside his being and make a home in his bones, their rot rising to the surface of his skin.

But still the souls cannot enter, no matter how they push and pull and something’s burning against his chest, something painful that has him look down and his shirt is singed where it covers the pendant that Minghao gifted him, the pendant that now burns itself into his flesh.

“Banish them!” someone is shouting but he doesn’t know who; he’s sliding against the wall, still cradling the bird in his hands, pain and panic and fear drowning his senses. There’s arms around him, someone shielding him with his own body, and a song that rises loudly in guttural tones, taken up by another voice, the sound of brass bells strident above it. The dead screech, he can hear them in his mind, a shrill sound that shreds him and he screams too, a hand pressing against his mouth as if to bar entry but it doesn’t matter, the dead cannot crawl in, there’s the burning against his chest and the song twining around him. And then, all ceases. The screams and the chant and the encroaching dark, the burning and the fingers pulling at his skin.

Chan opens his eyes and it’s Jeonghan pressed against him, cradling him to himself; Minghao coming to kneel near him, eyes wide, Joshua and Wonwoo standing farther off, a grape of bells dangling from Wonwoo’s hand.

“Are you alright?” Minghao asks, worries eating his features.

“I think,” Chan coughs, sitting up straighter against Jeonghan’s chest, mindful of the bird he deposits in his lap. “I think your charm worked.”

“It wasn’t supposed to burn you, though,” Minghao says, grimacing as he peers down Chan’s collar, tugging on the silver chain. The shape of the rune carved in the pendant is raised in blisters over Chan’s skin. “I’m sorry,” Minghao adds, “I hope it won’t scar.”

“Better that than being possessed by dead people,” Chan manages and Minghao smiles, ruffling his hair.

“Vernon,” Chan says then, and all eyes fall to the bird, still inert in his lap. But he’s breathing, and it’s Wonwoo who comes, taking it delicately in his hands.

“It will be fine,” he says, and it sounds more like a wish than a statement. He crosses the few steps to the hanbok on the floor and deposits the bird next to the mandrake root, righting himself to grab at a handful of white paper he burns above the hanbok. Joshua joins him then, and as Wonwoo stands at the head of the hanbok, Joshua stands at the feet and starts chanting in that low tongue of his. Wonwoo sways to the same rhythm, the grape of brass bells in his hand, an open fan in the other, one that belongs to him, this time. And he starts to dance, something slow and swaying, the fan tracing wide shapes into the air.

They’re answering each other, or so it seems, Joshua’s song and Wonwoo’s dance, twining a net of sound and magic over the hanbok, over the small bird and the mandrake root. Chan stares, their movements, their song soothing, the air stilling around them, the light dimming. And something happens, then. A shimmer out of the bird, falling off his feathers like drops of rain. Chan can hear Jeonghan’s sharp intake of breath, can see Minghao tense, and he watches as the shimmer is soaked up in the mandrake root. It’s like watching Vernon shift, Chant thinks. Edges start to blur, and he cannot hold his gaze steady, eyes filling with tears if he keeps watching. So he looks down, down at his lap and Jeonghan’s hand which found his own.

He looks up when the song dwindles, when the sound of the bells stops, when Minghao lets out a sound halfway to a shout. The hanbok isn’t empty anymore. There is a man there instead, lying on the floor. He seems small, dark hair falling over his closed eyes, thin lips parted on shallow breaths. The belt is tied too loosely on his chest, pale skin peeking between the folds of the robes and there’s something there, dark swirls of ink and when Chan struggles closer, he recognizes what they are – the runes Minghao had painted on the white linen are etched over the stranger’s skin like a tattoo, covering his chest. When Wonwoo hikes up a sleeve to check his pulse, they’re there too, twining around his arm down to the soft skin inside his wrist.

“It worked,” someone breathes out and when Chan looks up Vernon is there, disheveled and ashen but there all the same. He scrambles to his feet to get to him, wrapping him in an embrace that has them both topple over.

Vernon is laughing, pushing him off, trying to sit up.

“You scared me,” Chan says, clinging to him, “you were too still.”

“I’m fine,” Vernon says, pushing him off him to frame his face in his hands, “it was harder than I thought, but not that hard.”

“Show off,” Chan shoves him, looking back down at the man on the floor when Minghao moves to him, kneeling at his side.

“What is he?” he asks, looking up at Wonwoo. “What did we bring back?”

“He’s not alive, if that’s what you want to know,” Wonwoo says, “the pulse I feel isn’t his. It’s the magic we called, yours and mine and Joshua’s, and Vernon’s, too.”

“So he’s a spirit?” Jeonghan asks softly, brushing hair off the man’s brow and the gesture is gentle, his eyes full of compassion.

“Something like it,” Wonwoo says, sitting back on his haunches.

“It’s the house,” Vernon says then, all eyes falling to him. “The tree, it said – the house is built where it used to be, back when it was just a tree. I think here, I think anything is possible if it’s here.”

They look back down at the man, watch his chest rise and fall, his eyes flutter under closed eyelids. The silence stretches, the enormity of what they just did finally sinking in. Wonwoo lets himself fall seated to the floor, Minghao joining his side, leaning against him as they stare on. Jeonghan has gripped Joshua’s hand, Joshua who tugs on the hanbok, covering the man’s chest.

“What do we do know?” Chan asks eventually, when no one says a word, and there is a collective sigh.

“To be totally honest I haven’t thought that far,” Wonwoo says, “I think I kinda expected it not to work.”

“I any case we can’t just leave him to lie there,” Minghao says, rising to his feet. “Let’s put him in my room. Wonwoo and I can sleep in the library.”

They move him to Minghao’s room quickly; the man doesn’t even stir. There on the large bed he seems almost lost, eaten up by the folds of the hanbok and the pillows under his head. Minghao deposits blooms of Valerian at the head of the bed, for health, he says, and draws a rune upon the man’s forehead in the same oil he had used to soak the white linen in which they wrapped the mandrake root. Chan watches him work from his seat in the desk chair, Vernon dozing at his feet, using his legs as a backrest.

“How long do you think he’ll sleep?” Chan asks, knowing full well Minghao won’t have the answer but he just wants to talk; something uneasy rises in him each time he looks at the man, a sadness he’s not sure how to handle, a grief not entirely his own.

“I don’t know,” Minghao says as he lights incense with a match, the sweet smell of lavender rising in the air. “I guess as long as he feels like it. There is no rushing these things.”

“We spend way too much time waiting for people to wake up,” Chan mumbles and Minghao’s head snaps to him, something halfway amused on his face, something knowing in his eyes.

“You have no idea,” he says, shaking the match he held to extinguish it. There is something there, Chan knows, but he doesn’t want to ask, not yet. It feels like a story he isn’t ready to hear. So he keeps quiet, watching as Minghao stretches, watching as he stares at the stranger for a moment longer before padding to the door, mumbling something about food. Chan watches him go, scratching lazily at the burn on his chest through his shirt; the pain has already subsided, yet the skin is still red and angry. Maybe it will scar indeed, Minghao’s protective magic forever etched into his flesh. Maybe it speaks of his intent while he carved the rune, and Chan is again reminded of the fierce anger that had rose into him when Chan had appeared on his doorstep, face bruised, his whole life in a duffle bag. Chan finds then that he wouldn’t mind the scar so much.

“When I found him,” Vernon says suddenly, gaze trained on the slumbering man, “when I found him he wasn’t alone. He was buried with someone else, someone he loved, I think. They held each other in death. But there was only one soul. The other was gone somewhere.”

Chan stares, chewing on his lips, before realization dawns on him.

“You want to find it,” he says slowly, looking down at Vernon.

“Yes,” Vernon says, tilting his head back to gaze at Chan and there’s grief in his eyes, grief and loss.

“I thought, if it was you, if it was you I would do everything I could. And he brought me back. He brought me back to you. If that person’s soul is out there somewhere, it’s worth trying to bring it back to him.”

“Okay,” Chan says, and he understands a bit more of that sadness which clings to the man’s shape. “Okay, I will help you.”

Vernon’s hands rise and Chan folds in the chair, bending down until he can kiss him, and kiss him again. There against Vernon’s lips he mumbles them again, those three words he can still barely say, and Vernon swallows them with a sigh. There is plenty of time, yet, plenty of time to hear them aloud.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have one more story more or less planned for this AU but it's still all in my head so it might take a while before anything is out. If you're interested keep an eye out I guess! 
> 
> Thank you so much for reading until the end. You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/BlanquetteAO3) if you feel like it! Take care and maybe see you next story!


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